Post by victorgrant on Jan 22, 2018 7:48:55 GMT
Light-weight Robotics has been a central research topic at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics for more than 20 years.
To turn the dream of a robot with a payload to mass ratio of 1:1 into reality, a novel approach was taken: Instead of ensuring the necessary positioning accuracy for assembly and service tasks by a very rigid and therefore voluminous and heavy structure, the light-weight robot can feel the correct positions at the workpiece like a human worker. In the case of a classical ‚peg in hole‘ problem for example, the assembly position is approximated on a millimetric scale until contact is reached. Afterwards the exact assembly position is identified by a search movement using the integrated sensors.
The necessary internal link side position and joint torque sensors offer several additional advantages:
Vibrations of the robot arm can be directly measured and actively damped, which allows for high dynamic movements
Collisions with the environment are detected immediately, which allows in connection with the low mass of the light-weight robot a safe human robot interaction.
The low mass due to the - compared to conventional industrial robots - lighter structure permits it to reach identical dynamic properties with smaller motors. This enhances the weight reduction even further and thereby simplifies the transport of the robot to varying sites of operation.
The first light-weight robot at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics was the DLR Light-Weight Robot (LWR) I, completed in 1995. Both the LWR I and its its successor LWR II (presented in 2000) were mere research systems. The experiences from these two generations of light-weight robots were taken into account for the development of the LWR III
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Mobile Explainer Video