Günter Schreiber

A New Generation of Compliance Controlled Manipulators with Human Arm Like Properties

This paper describes the overall control structure of a new generation of compliance controlled manipulators implemented by the design and control of the DLR lightweight robot. To achieve the compliance property, the manipulator does not have to revert to a human-like, bionic design. A serial link manipulator, control technology, and sensorized joint actuators can generate a kinesthesis similar to the compliance properties of the human arm. The design and control of the new robot generation implement these properties in a very different way than its biological counterpart to enable high fidelity interaction of the robot with its environment.

Aus der Forschung zum Industrieprodukt: Die Entwicklung des KUKA Leichtbauroboters

Zusammenfassung Forschungsergebnisse in marktfähige Produkte zu verwandeln erfordert ein beträchtliches Maß an Ausdauer und starkes Unternehmertum. Der KUKA Leichtbauroboter (LBR) ist das jüngste Ergebnis einer langjährigen Forschungs- und Entwicklungskooperation zwischen der KUKA Roboter GmbH in Augsburg und dem Institut für Robotik und Mechatronik des DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen. Dieser Beitrag schildert den Weg der Produktentstehung, den innovativen Charakter des LBR und zeigt erste Anwendungsbeispiele. Abstract Transforming research results into marketable products requires considerable endurance and a strong sense of entrepreneurship. The KUKA lightweight robot (LWR) is the latest outcome of a bilateral research collaboration between KUKA Roboter, Augsburg, and the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen. The stages of product genesis, the most innovative features and first application examples are presented.

Flexible Control of Complex Kinematic Chains

Robots providing meaningful services in unconstraint environments require advanced mobility, manipulation, sensing and perception capabilities. KUKA’s task in DESIRE was to develop robot arms and control hardware and software that are flexible with respect to the number of degrees of freedom and their connections to build kinematic chains and the type of sensors used to perceive the environment. To enable the DESIRE project partners and research partners beyond the DESIRE consortium to work with advanced lightweight torque-controlled robot arms KUKA and DLR engaged in a technology transfer leading to the commercialization of the DLR Lightweight Robot. After many innovative steps, first at DLR beginning in the early 1990s, later at DLR and KUKA, both partners managed to successfully go the strenuous road from the original invention, an idea made manifest in 1991, to prototypes produced in a small series starting in December 2008 [5]. This paper first reviews the most important steps leading to this development. Second, the development of flexible controllers which enabled the project partners to integrate the KUKA-DLR Lightweight Robot in a dual-arm robot system is presented. Furthermore, independent KUKA demonstrators – an omnidirectional mobile manipulator and a dual arm system – are introduced which demonstrate the capabilities of a newly developed controller framework.

Realtime Coordinated Redundant Motion of a Nonholonomic Mobile Manipulator

In this paper, the problem of coordinated motion control of a nonholonomic mobile platform with a serial manipulator mounted on top of the platform is addressed. The redundancy resolution algorithm hases on a constraint optimization approach, where the non—holonomic behaviour of the platform is modeled into inequality constraints leading to a convex optimization problem.