Open Educational Resources on Enabling Technologies in Wearable and Collaborative Robotics (WeCoRD) project will establish a strategic partnership for modernising postgraduate and continuous professional education in the field of robotics, making it more relevant to the users, labour market and industry needs, boosting skills and employability of learners. According to the International Federation of Robotics, collaborative and wearable robots have become the largest trend in robotics with high demand for skilled graduates. Collaborative industrial robots enable manufacturers to improve productivity by complementing human skills, relieving employees of heavy, unergonomic and tedious tasks. They play a vital role in the automotive sector. For millions of people with physical disabilities, wearable robotic technologies make everyday life easier or assist their rehabilitation. The EU collaborative robots market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 50.02% during 2018-2026. The global surgical robots market is rapidly expanding and is anticipated to reach $19.96bn in 2019. This means that the development of robotics could have a significant impact on Europe’s capacity to expand a competitive industry with millions of related jobs at stake. There has been a clear focus on developing more user-friendly robots as current models often have flaws that disappoint users. As per Multi-Annual Roadmap for Robotics in Europe 2020, development of enabling technologies to improve wearable and collaborative robots is one of the main priorities. The more user-centered is the design of such robots produced in Europe - the greater are the overall acceptance of technology among users and the global market share. These days, the market is dominated by the US and Japan. Given that an increasing number of EU citizens will need healthcare/rehabilitation in the coming decades, massive introduction of well-designed medical and rehabilitation robots could have a significant social and economic impact for the EU. The knowledge of physiology, neuroscience, ergonomics, interaction design is therefore becoming a more widely sought professional quality for robot engineers. In this context, WeCoRD project aims to enhance the EU higher education capacity in teaching enabling technologies in wearable and collaborative robotics for medical and industrial applications to fill in the skill gap between, on the one hand, the industry and the labour market needs and, on the other hand, the quality and quantity of the graduates. WeCoRD brings together five internationally renowned institutions from Turkey, Belgium, Russia and the Netherlands to combine their advanced expertise on enabling technologies in a validated innovative course offer of excellence, extended with professionally produced open educational resources, and an online Virtual Lab aimed at accessibility and fostering implementation across Europe. The project partners will select the most relevant methods, tools, and findings in engineering, design and medical research to introduce them into curricula by producing four dedicated transdisciplinary modules. These will equip graduates with the right skills and with the mindset of future technology leaders. Consultations with industry/medical stakeholders will guide the consortium's selection of learning methods and objectives, assessment criteria, research methodologies, required skills, and competences, filling the gap between research, education and the workplace. Three innovative teaching modules comprising the course will be validated during transnational Summer Schools, resulting in first-hand experience and feedback data. The fourth module is aimed to make biomechatronics accessible to medical students as future users of robots in surgery and rehabilitation. It will be validated by experts. Various participants are considered for the pilots and beyond. Mechanical Engineering students from partner universities are direct end-users of the project outputs. Other participants who enroll in the course through the Virtual Lab or in replications across Europe will include all types of learners, educators, professionals and industry workers. Five public events will be the main dissemination activities for relevant stakeholders, who are essential as the target audience, users of the Virtual Lab, multipliers of the knowledge, and a source of valuable feedback. WeCoRD's impact will be strongest at EU level, while also providing benefits to society and the economy at local, regional and national level. Through intensive cross-border and transdisciplinary cooperation, the project will produce results that are likely to become self-sustaining and develop further, such as the WeCoRD teaching community and the Virtual Lab. The project will help to prepare graduates for the robotics industry and other employers, thus contributing to making the economies of the Erasmus+ Programme countries more research-driven, knowledge-based, and competitive.
The main purpose of the project is to create an open educational resource in the field of wearable robots. In this way, it is aimed to make its documents accessible to those who want to apply the relevant education. For this purpose, “WeCoRD Textbook”, which is the main output of the project, was created. The textbook and its content have been shaped in the light of the modules of the project (“Components for wearable and collaborative robots”, “Modeling, Control and Design of Wearable and Collaborative Robots as Systems”, “HRI for wearable and collaborative robots”, “WeCoRD for Medical Applications”). With the multiplier events held during the project, the WeCoRD project and the targeted objectives were shared with students and academics all over the world. In addition to these, summer/winter schools were organized during the project and the topics of the relevant modules were covered. Apart from the students enrolled in the school, video recordings of the summer/winter schools were taken and presented to all students on the WeCoRD website and social media accounts. With the “WeCoRD Curriculum”, which includes all the planning and tools, a guide was created for the innovative graduate engineering education target of the project.
According to the IFR, collaborative and wearable robots have become the largest trend in robotics with high demand for skilled graduates. Collaborative industrial robots enable manufacturers to improve productivity by complementing human skills, relieving employees of heavy, unergonomic tasks. For people with physical disabilities, wearable robotic technologies make everyday life easier or assist their rehabilitation. As per Multi-Annual Roadmap for Robotics in EU-2020, development of enabling technologies to improve wearable and collaborative robots is one of the main priorities. Increasing number of EU citizens will need healthcare/rehabilitation in the coming decades, massive introduction of well-designed medical and rehabilitation robots could have a significant social and economic impact for the EU. WeCoRD aimed to enhance the EU higher education capacity in teaching enabling technologies in wearable and collaborative robotics for medical and industrial applications to fill in the skill gap between, also the industry and the labor market needs and the quality and quantity of the graduates. The activities held and the distribution of the outputs obtained were also carried out in line with the open educational resource purpose.