Low Energy Robotic Researchers significantly reduce the energy consumption of robots

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Researchers aim to make robotic systems more flexible and ideally reduce energy consumption by 25 percent as part of the "GreenBotAI" research project. Details at the Hannover Messe ...

Smaller batch sizes instead of mass, more complex production lines, increasing competitive pressure, unstable supply chains, are the challenges that the participants in the German-French research project "GreenBotAI" are facing in the field of robotics. Three priorities are in the foreground. First, even in times of pandemic, production should not be stopped in the future. Second, Europe's independence in production automation should be strengthened. And thirdly, the goal is to significantly reduce the energy consumption of robot applications in European factories, as already written above. Technically, the project focuses on the reaction and latency times of industrial robots, an optimized path planning as well as the execution of certain tasks during the robot movement ("on the fly"). Without intermediate stop, for instance, it would be possible to capture 2D images for object recognition for the desired handling or assembly task. In the German-French research project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU from Chemnitz is the consortium leader.

A generational change in robotics is imminent ...

The project focus is on an agile approach to handling materials and workpieces. AI algorithms (AI = artificial intelligence) are intended to give manufacturing with robot systems more flexibility and accelerate production in various industrial sectors. The goal is an "intelligent" robotics that can also perform complex tasks spontaneously, as IWU notes. The necessary hardware components, new "deep learning" methods for surveillance, and improvements in data processing and error control are intended to usher in nothing less than a generational change in robotics. As mentioned, the project is working on several levers to reduce the energy demand of robot systems by up to 25 percent. These include data-reduced AI models, accelerated gripping tasks, and reduced computation power, as the researchers specify.

Hannover Fair visitors can be there live ...

At the Hannover Messe 2024, the project partners will show how far they have already come. A single 2D image ('One Shot' demonstration) of the component taken with industrial camera technology and little computing power is already sufficient for the robot to pick up this component, check it and bring it to the desired position. The Xeidana software developed at the Fraunhofer IWU takes control to check whether the correct component has been picked up. Guests at the exhibition stand are encouraged to try it out for themselves, as the exhibitors emphasize. They simply place a gear wheel anywhere on a table in the working area of a collaborative robot (Cobot). Based on the image information, the software determines the positions of all objects relative to the robot, then calculates the robot's path and determines the gripping position. The robot now grips the gear wheel, checks it, and relies entirely on the image information. This is where the real-time evaluation of force data comes into play, which tells the robot how to fit the gear wheel it has picked up into a second gear wheel. This works with a smart application of AI that imitates human touch. All real actions of the robot are additionally visualized via a digital twin. You can also experience live assembly and the application for integrated quality control.

The project partners involved in "GreenBotAI"

Project partners in "GreenBotAI" include the Fraunhofer IWU, the Munich University of Applied Sciences (Faculty of Applied Sciences and Mechatronics), the software developer Inbolt SAS, and the École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (Ensam Lispen). The funding provider on the German side is the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection.