Efficient development of Cobots and medical robots.

Complete drive Gamechanger for robot development

2024-04-17 Source: Sensodrive | Translated by AI 4 min Reading Time

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Develop Cobots and medical robots in less than 5 months and save development and certification costs in the 7-digit range - this is what Sensodrive promises with the ready-to-install complete drives Sensojoint.

Sensorob, the sensitive cobot, developed in just a few months with Sensojoints.(Image: Sensodrive) — Sensorob, the sensitive cobot, developed in just a few months with Sensojoints.
(Image: Sensodrive)

Developing and certifying a secure robot axle requires a lot of time and money. The strict process of safety certifications must be followed exactly. Additional rounds of development and series of tests may be needed, posing an incalculable risk for manufacturers of cobots and medical robots.

This immense time effort for development and certification of the drives is saved if you use the complete drives Sensojoint from Sensodrive for your cobots and medical robots, promises CEO Norbert Sporer. From the third quarter of 2024, the drives can be installed out of the box in almost any robotics solution, says Sporer: "A robot axis is finished that meets all requirements according to SIL3/PLe."

The savings potential that Sensodrive promises its customers could make the Sensojoints a game changer in robot development. "Whether it's cobots or medical robots - manufacturers who use our complete drives instead of developing their own drive solutions, can halve their time-to-market," explains Sporer. Instead of several years, for example, the development of cobots now only takes a few months and saves development and certification costs in the millions, the CEO promises.

Sensojoints are ready-to-install complete drives with integrated torque measurement and control. From the motor to the torque sensor to the gearbox, all components are already combined in a compact, particularly lightweight and powerful design. "In the future, every company will be able to develop competitive cobots and medical robots," enthuses the Sensodrive CEO, "and at the same time receive market-leading torque technology, which gives their own products a clear competitive advantage."

From space to the global market

The success story of Sensojoints began as early as 2003 with the spin-off of Sensodrive GmbH from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). "Our idea was to make lightweight robot technology from space travel available for industrial and medical technology," recalls Sporer. With the first torque sensor for industrial use, Sensodrive laid the foundation for collaborative robotics and has acted as a market leader ever since. "We've always wanted to provide the lightest, most compact, most sensitive and safest robot joint in the world, so the consistent further development from the torque sensor to the complete robot axis was logical for us."

"Our goal was to develop a universally applicable robot axis that can be used in all conceivable robotic solutions," says development engineer Marek Polak. Thousands of development hours, hundreds of documents, and countless elaborate test series later, this vision is now on the verge of completion. "Whether Cobot, medical robot, rehabilitation robotics, surgery robots, surgery stands, cinema robotics, telerobotics or research robots - due to the five standard sizes and a variety of performance variants for the respective sizes, the Sensojoints will always provide the perfect solution."

Sensodrive offers Sensojoints in five sizes with over 40 performance variants as well as flexible hardware and software interfaces. This allows for tailor-made solutions for various applications. When selecting the optimal specification, the Sensodrive experts incorporate their integration know-how.

Effort that has paid off

"This universal range of applications has made the development extremely complex and demanding," explains Polak. "From the very beginning, we consistently used high-tech simulations and simulated hundreds of use cases to derive the results for various specifications. In addition, countless standards from the many areas of application had to be observed and met. On top of this, we have developed five sizes with a total of over 40 variants in parallel."

The team at Sensodrive, which has now grown to over 50 employees, took on this task and was able to overcome all obstacles. Above all, the agile pooling of resources in a multi-project environment and the early involvement of the certification body were key factors for success. "And of course, the use of intelligent software for development and simulation," adds Marek Polak. "From simulation software like Matlab/Simulink to 3D CAD applications like Creo Parametric to numerous in-house tools, state-of-the-art solutions were used in all areas."

Close cooperation as a success factor

Another key factor for the success of the project was the partnership-based cooperation with all parties involved. "Whether development partners and component suppliers, certification bodies or even first reference customers - everyone was brought on board as early as possible and closely integrated into all processes. "With our know-how and our roots as a development service provider, we were able to perfectly optimize all processes," says Norbert Sporer.

Bright prospects for manufacturers

"The entire development was self-financed without venture capital," emphasizes the Managing Director of Sensodrive. "And the effort has paid off. With Sensojoints, our customers can now build prototypes in no time and present them to their own customers. They can fully focus on their core competencies - we provide the optimal application-specific robot arm kinematics and drive technology," Sporer concludes.

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The engineers at Sensodrive have proven that any company can become a manufacturer of competitive cobots - and have developed and built - according to their own statements - the most sensitive cobot in the world within a few months. Sensojoints were used as axes - all other larger components of the Sensorob came from the 3D printer. "The Sensojoint concept works," says Norbert Sporer. "And also for future trends in robotics development such as application-specific robot kinematics, teleoperation, or humanoid robots." (ud)