EU Roboticists vote for KUKA lightweight robot

340 robotic specialists were presented with the finalists of the 2011 euRobotics Technology Transfer Award at The European Robotics Forum, held in Västerås this year, The award, now in its eighth year, has become the most prestigious award in the European robotics community. The jury was looking for a unique collaboration between research and industrial partners leading to outstanding innovation with proven potential for significant economic impact.

Martin Hägele, a jury member and head of the Department of Robot Systems at Fraunhofer IPA, commented: "The judges awarded the first prize to the Lightweight Robot developed by KUKA and DLR - Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics - because, being developed over more than a decade, it is mature technology that could open up numerous robotic applications in our daily life, such as in manufacturing, services and medicine."

From the outset, the KUKA-DLR Lightweight Robot (LWR) was developed to imitate a human arm's dexterity, sensing and strength. Simultaneously it is also less dangerous and easier to program than existing robots, making it ideal for tasks which require close human-robot interaction. The LWR is more portable and energy-saving than robots with comparable payloads, making it particularly suitable for mobile robot applications.

Dr. Alin Albu-Schaeffer (DLR) and Dr. Ralf Koeppe (KUKA) accepted the award, representing the DLR and the KUKA developer teams. Dr. Ralf Koeppe said: "We are committed to co-operative working between robots and people, so this means you can touch our robot anywhere and still be safe, thanks to the torque control we've built into the joints. We've succeeded in combining safety and force with vision to create a robot capable of learning through demonstration, yet still accurate to just tens of microns. The LWR is the first robot to be rated safe to operate without a protective fence - a historic milestone. We believe the world is now our oyster in developing applications for LWR and its variants." 

Second prize went to 3B Scientific's SIMone, an extraordinary, interactive robotic birth simulator, developed by TU München, ETH Zurich and 3B Scientific. SIMone aims to reduce the number of caesarean sections and incidence of cerebral palsy as a result of incorrect use of forceps and vacuum extraction. At the core of SIMone is a force controlled kinematic structure, which is actuated to rotate the baby realistically as it moves through the birth canal with position and force sensors to record forces and torques applied by the forcesps or vacuum tool. The physiological model incorporates forces generated by friction, elastic tissues, uterine contractions and the user's attempts to extract the baby. 3B Scientific has already sold 50 systems worldwide of this advanced training tool for medical students and doctors.

The other finalists in the euRobotics Technology Transfer Award were: Fits.me, an Estonian start-up company which has, jointly with Tallinn University, developed an on-line fitting room for clothing retailers using robotic mannequins, Surgenius, a surgical robot developed by Surgica Robotica and the University of Verona and Workerbot, a human inspired , dual armed robot, created by a collaboration between pi4_robotics and Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, IPK.

"We have never had so many different robotics fields represented in the Technology Transfer session. It shows that robotics technology is penetrating more and more fields and markets", stated Henrik A. Schunk, managing partner of SCHUNK and chairman of EUnited Robotics. The Technology Transfer session was one of the highlights of the European Robotics Forum. Supported by the European Commission through the euRobotics Co-ordination Action, the event attracted delegates from industry and academia, as well as entrepreneurs and public investors, to discuss the latest developments, research challenges and business opportunities for European robotics. The motto of this year`s Forum was "Enabling innovation - from research to products" with the award session featuring five successful examples of research generating real products entering the market.

To enhance excellence in applied research and to raise the profile of technology transfer from research to industry, the Technology Transfer Award has been awarded annually since 2003. For further information, view website:  http://www.kuka.com

Custom engineered solutions helps
fan manufacturer achieve high accuracy

Engineering excellence is a key objective for Torin Sifan and as such this global supplier of air movement solutions sources its equipment and machinery from businesses with a similar work ethic. A strong commitment to research and development at the heart of its business has contributed to positioning Torin Sifan as the partner of choice for energy efficient air movement solutions in markets where legislation increasingly demands low carbon products.

When the company embarked upon a new impeller development program, manufacturing engineers Bradley Kirk and Greg Etter approached Universal Balancing because of their past experience with them in supplying accurate balancing equipment and innovative solutions - and crucially, for their flexible and customer-focused approach.

"As a market leader, Torin-Sifan's strengths lie in the ability to not only provide a range of standard air movement products but also to meet individual customers' bespoke ventilation needs by being both versatile and flexible," comments Kirk. "That means working closely both with them and our suppliers and responding in a way that benefits all parties. With this impeller development, we were very keen to give our customer what he required as quickly and efficiently as possible and had the confidence that working with Universal Balancing would be key to our achieving these aims."

The issues
The challenge centered upon improving the balance of a new impeller where the correction planes were less than 2 inches apart. During the development work using another supplier's balancer, Torin Sifan's engineers had attempted to balance the impeller by adding weights to the blades in two planes; however, because of their close proximity, cross plane influence was experienced which resulted in unacceptable readings, giving a relocation error of 0.5 kg with the existing tooling. After consultation with Universal Balancing two main issues were identified:

1) The tooling used to mount the part in the balancing machine was giving a clearance of more than 20 microns - meaning a potential relocation error of 8 gmm
2) The plane separation was too close for 'standard' machines to handle

"We recognised that we needed an improved design and asked Universal Balancing if they could build a 2-plane balancer for us that would successfully deliver our goal," explains Kirk. "The result was a machine customised exactly to fit our precise requirements while meeting the rigorous quality standards that our customers have rightly come to expect."

The solution
Universal Balancing's solution included providing a Northfield high precision air chuck to clamp the parts to within 1 micron (repeatability) and giving a balancing accuracy of <2 gmm. To address the issue of close plane separation, the machine's suspension was adjusted and a calibration technique was employed which eliminates cross-feed between planes. This allowed optimum plane separation to be achieved in the calculated unbalance results.

The next issue to be addressed was the design of clip weights that are added to balance the part. Universal Balancing noticed that excessive pressure while adding the clips was distorting the part. This was causing the rotational axis to change, resulting in a new balance measurement requiring weights to be added at additional locations. The unbalance was in effect being 'chased' around the part, inevitably resulting in unnecessarily excessive cycle times.

Universal Balancing custom engineered one of its standard V5S vertical 2-plane balancing machines to meet Torin Sifan's requirements. A small dampener was fitted onto the tooling and a different style of weights introduced to reduce part distortion. In addition, Universal Balancing designed bespoke weight-adding software based on its UNI-44 Windows-based touchscreen measuring system. Now, instead of needing to calculate positioning of the weight, the operators simply rotate the part by hand and the software specifies which weight needs to be added and indicates precisely where to place them in order to achieve a balanced part in the shortest possible time.

The benefits
"This software has really improved productivity," enthuses Kirk. "It tells our operators exactly which blades to place weights on, how many and at which angle - and even calculates which clips are needed on which plane. Not only that, we are achieving an exceptional reduction ratio of 98%."

With so many different air movement products being manufactured for customers - some with 11 impeller blades, some averaging 30-60, the machine is proving to be an extremely worthwhile investment for Torin Sifan for a relatively modest outlay.

"While we originally purchased the machine for a particular product development exercise, we have been able to use it with great success with several others," continues Kirk.

Universal Balancing's solution has become a critical part of the machine set-up at Torin Sifan, helping the company to save time and money in providing bespoke products, fully tested to meet customer requirements for the highest levels of quality and reliability.

"Universal Balancing not only provided the very best solution, their support and willingness to take the trouble to tailor it to our specification has been second to none," concludes Kirk. "Other suppliers just wanted to sell us a basic machine - whether it matched our requirements or not!"

Universal Balancing in profile
Universal Balancing provides industry with a full range of balancing equipment combined with an excellent service. Machines include manual horizontal and vertical to fully automated turnkey solutions. All machines have a track record of balancing millions of components per year and some of the first originally manufactured by Jackson & Bradwell in the 1950s are still in operation today.

With its headquarters in Bristol UK and offices and agents in the US, Europe and other parts of the world, Universal Balancing can provide an total solution for all balancing requirements - by telephone, email, web, remote diagnostics and attendance on-site by one of the company's global service engineers.

For further information, e-mail: sales@unibal.co.uk or view website: www.universal-balancing.com