Rainer Bischoff

KUKA youBot - a mobile manipulator for research and education

Establishing mobile manipulation as a powerful key technology for the cognitive factory requires mobile manipulation platforms, which at the same time pay attention to industrial requirements, meet requirements of education and research and last, but not least, come with a decent price tag. KUKA has recently launched a major research and development effort towards designing a mobile manipulation platform that meets these requirements and can serve as a reference platform for industry, research and education at the same time. Although the initiative has just left the starting blocks, a first off-spring, the KUKA youBot, an omni-directional mobile manipulator has just seen the light of day. In this paper we report on the development of the first prototypes.

The MORPHA style guide for icon-based programming

Icon-based programming paves the way for making programming of modern industrial robots simpler and more intuitive. The flowchart-like representation of the program structure provides a superior overview. Programming becomes possible without detailed prior knowledge of a syntax. The style guide presented in this paper suggests a number of manufacturer-independent design rules for intuitive icon-based programming interfaces operated via touch screen and speech input. The complete style guide can be obtained from the authors free of charge by e-mail.

Perspectives on augmented reality based human-robot interaction with industrial robots

First steps towards reliable augmented reality based human-robot interaction have been explored by the industrial robot manufacturer KUKA within the German cooperative research project MORPHA. Various aspects of augmented reality were analyzed and evaluated with respect to industrial requirements: interaction devices, tracking methods, accuracy, cost etc. As a result of this study, training of, and qualification for, robot operation and programming was selected as the most promising area for AR-based human-robot interaction with state-of-the-art AR techniques and devices. Therefore, research work concentrated on visualizing workflows that help inexperienced users to cope with rather complex robot operation and programming tasks. Several AR-based human-robot interaction prototypes were developed and presented to KUKA College students. Implementation details and results of initial experiments and a user survey are presented.

RoboCup@Work: Competing for the Factory of the Future

Mobile manipulators are viewed as an essential component for making the factory of the future become a reality. RoboCup@Work is a competition designed by a group of researchers from the RoboCup community and focuses on the use of mobile manipulators and their integration with automation equipment for performing industrially-relevant tasks. The paper describes the design and implementation of the competition and the experiences made so far.

Towards Service Robots for Everyday Environments

People have dreamed of machines, which would free them from unpleasant, dull, dirty and dangerous tasks and work for them as servants, for centuries if not millennia. Service robots seem to finally let these dreams come true. But where are all these robots that eventually serve us all day long, day for day? A few service robots have entered the market: domestic and professional cleaning robots, lawnmowers, milking robots, or entertainment robots. Some of these robots look more like toys or gadgets rather than real robots. But where is the rest? This is a question, which is asked not only by customers, but also by service providers, care organizations, politicians, and funding agencies. The answer is not very satisfying. Todays service robots have their problems operating in everyday environments. This is by far more challenging than operating an industrial robot behind a fence. There is a comprehensive list of technical and scientific problems, which still need to be solved. To advance the state of the art in service robotics towards robots, which are capable of operating in an everyday environment, was the major objective of the DESIRE project (Deutsche Service Robotik Initiative Germany Service Robotics Initiative) funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant no. 01IME01A. This book offers a sample of the results achieved in DESIRE.

Gentle robotic handling - adaptation of gripperorientation to minimize undesired shear forces

Todays palletizing and handling robots move their payloads on trajectories that are neither optimized for minimal grasping forces nor for careful object handling. Problems arise with vacuum grippers that can only exert normal forces on payloads. During high-speed transfers undesired shear forces and torques appear that may well lead to the loss of grasped objects and consequently to a production stop and damage to both the object and the environment. A related problem is concerned with handling goods that need special care, such as liquids that should not spill over during transport, or bakery goods on a tray that should not be scrambled and dislocated before being moved into an oven. To be able to handle objects with care but nevertheless with maximum velocity, a new simple and effective methodology based on the adaptation of the gripper orientation is proposed. It leads to robot trajectories (in particular gripper orientations) that minimize shear forces and torques on grasped objects and thus allows gentle robotic handling processes. The methodology is presented as well as simulation and experimental results

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.

Energy and peak-power optimization of existing time-optimal robot trajectories

This paper, as an outcome of the EU project AREUS, heralds an optimization procedure that reduces up to 30% of energy consumption and up to 60% of peak-power for the trajectories that were tested on a real industrial robot. We have evaluated a number of cost functions and examined our algorithm for a variety of scenarios such as varying cycle times and single/two-robot cases. The significance of our work is not only in the impressive savings, simplicity of implementation and preserving path and cycle time, but also in the effort made to carry out the optimization and experiments in as realistic conditions as possible.

From research to products: the KUKA perspective on European research projects

Building on the recent experience of the KUKA Robot Group, this article shows the broad spectrum of topics addressed in European robotics research projects. It describes recently completed research projects that resulted in products that would not have been developed otherwise. These include the AMIRA Project, the HANDFLEX Project, and the REALISM Project. The diversity of topics covered illustrates the great potential for innovation in this area.

RoCKIn and the European Robotics League: Building on RoboCup Best Practices to Promote Robot Competitions in Europe

This paper describes activities that promote robot competitions in Europe, using and expanding RoboCup concepts and best practices, through two projects funded by the European Commission under its FP7 and Horizon2020 programmes. The RoCKIn project ended in December 2015 and its goal was to speed up the progress towards smarter robots through scientific competitions. Two challenges have been selected for the competitions due to their high relevance and impact on Europes societal and industrial needs: domestic service robots (RoCKIn@Home) and innovative robot applications in industry (RoCKIn@Work). RoCKIn extended the corresponding RoboCup leagues by introducing new and prevailing research topics, such as networking mobile robots with sensors and actuators spread over the environment, in addition to specifying objective scoring and benchmark criteria and methods to assess progress. The European Robotics League (ERL) started recently and includes indoor competitions related to domestic and industrial robots, extending RoCKIn’s rulebooks. Teams participating in the ERL must compete in at least two tournaments per year, which can take place either in a certified test bed (i.e., based on the rulebooks) located in a European laboratory, or as part of a major robot competition event. The scores accumulated by the teams in their best two participations are used to rank them over an year.