A message from the ECHORD coordinator Alois Knoll

Progress of the ALEXA experiment Task 1 – Technical concept Concept of the ALEXA Robotic Arm In the first stage, the joint configuration and the links length of the 5-DOF ALEXA robotic arm were determined by optimizing the workspace. Here, all constraints (angular range of the joints, etc.) and conditions (load-case, etc.)...

The flexprass experiment shall prove feasibility of combining lightweight desktop robots capable of close human-machine collaboration (Schunk) with high-precision manipulators (Fraunhofer IPT), e.g., needed for automated assembly of optical systems and lasers. Partners configured customized manipulator based on PowerCube...

Task 4 We finalized the main control of the ALEXA robot. Finally, it has the following features: Functionalities to compute paths with minimal joint loads (PTP motions) and in optimum time (LIN motions) Generator that computes position and velocity trajectories in the joint space Decentralized position controllers that...

Walk-through programming The programming mode has been realised through a set of admittance controllers. It must be noticed that the tests reaveal that the classical implementation of the walk-through programming mode does not allow for motion in contact with a surface. It turns out that realising the walk-through...

Walk-through programming The problem of walk-through programming in contact with an hard surface is still under studying. The main concerns are related to the implementation of a robust algorithm to detect the contact and estimate the normal to the surface. Wheel localisation and burr analysis To localise the wheel a...

In this step of the experiment conception, the robot control design took place. There is now a robot control architecture with an extended impedance controller and an open communication interface to the industrial robot control box. Further the safety system has beeing integrated into the robot control and the experiment...

We have been improving the facial tracker in order to make it more robust than the original version to sudden illumination changes. The improvements have been focused principally in the learning strategy of the facial template for the calculation of the update of the 3D facial model configuration. Its previous version was...

Contour following and profile estimation Three different experiments have been performed to test the contour following algorithm. The first one concerns the measurement of a linear profile with an artificial burr (Figs. 1-2). Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 The two other experiments show the performance of the contour following system...

The experiment system design addressing the design of the entire experiment system including safety system, mechanical parts, user interface and robot periphery is completed. The mechanical construction of the tool carrier includes an additional axis for changing configuration of tools without moving the robot through...

In January and February, the work was focused on the development of probabilistic methods for the gesture based human robot interaction (tasks 4), and the task planning and task dependent adaption of robot motion planning (task 5). Also the deliverables 2.1 and 2.2 were completed. For the hand gesture analysis, a...