Annie: Assistive Robot Research Platform

The Institute for Factory Operation and Automation, Fraunhofer IFF, from Magdeburg, Germany is actually conducting a lot of research projects on collaborative robots. In fact, it is not a surprise that human-robot collaboration is now part of the industrial world. As often mention by the institute: “Robotics is at a turning point”. With this statement, the research community wants to say that the classic application of industrial robots is evolving towards a collaborative application, where robots and humans can work side-by-side. Robotics researchers are convinced that in the near future, robots will actively assist humans in various tasks, without any protective barriers. One of the important features of these types of robots is their safety systems. The institute is evaluating some of them.

Safety Technologies

The Institute is cooperating with leading manufacturers and industries to develop different collaborative technologies. These technologies are, in fact, already in great demand by industry. Just as an example, one of it’s projects is about an “artificial skin”. This device is really a tactile sensor that can be customized for any robot. The artificial skin gives the robot a sense of touch, so that the robot can know its exact location and the intensity of a contact. If an unplanned contact occurs, the robot can detect it and stop its movement to avoid any injuries or damage.

In Fraunhofer’s laboratories, other experiments include, a safety system that monitors the work area shared with humans. In this system, an optical device is used in combination with a “light curtain”  that surround the workstation of the robot. If anything breaks the “curtain”, the robot will stop.

They also have developed flexible kinematics for the robot's trunk or body and cabling, in order to avoid any pinch or shear points in the design. Moreover, some conceptions are so lightweight and slow that they are not a threat for humans.

The Fraunhofer IFF held their bi-annual Human-Robot Cooperation Conference on June 20, 2013. Various renowned and talented speakers were there and here are the major topics of the presentations:

• Safety
• Multimodal interaction
• Intuitive robot programming
• Psychosocial aspects of human-robot cooperation
• Current industry projects for assistive robotics

Annie

This last topic involves a lot of the Institute because, among their various projects, they also worked on a mobile assistive robot named, Annie, that will be used as a research platform.

The main reason why they created Annie is flexibility. In order to be economically valuable, the hardware used in this project has to be highly adaptable. Using generic but flexible components, the mobile robot can handle a variety of tasks.

Annie was assembled with a conglomerate of technologies chosen by the Institute and it will be used with industrial partners for testing in real environments. The assistive robot includes the omni-directional platform from the Institute, a special vision system including a light-field camera that offers great flexibility, a KUKA Lightweight 4+ robot arm and a Robotiq 3-Finger Adaptive Robot Gripper. With all these components, this industrial assistant is able to recognize its environment and move independently and safely around the manufacturer's floor. Its robot end effector allows it to do delicate tasks such as opening fragile glass doors.

The use of Robotiq's end effector demonstrates that the flexibility of this product is reknown in the robotic community.