Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (Fraunhofer IPA), Stuttgart, Germany

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Website - ipa.fraunhofer.de

youtube.com/FraunhoferIPA

facebook.com/IPA.Fraunhofer

twitter.com/Fraunhofer_IPA

linkedin.com/company/fraunhofer-ipa

instagram.com/fraunhofer_ipa

Head of industrial service robotics group - Kai Pfeiffer

Projects and products:

Bin-Picking

service robots for agriculture

DeKonBot, cleaning and disinfection robot

project BakeR (Building blocks for cost efficient, modular cleaning robots)

“SeRoDi” project (“Service Robotics for Personal Services”)

MPI CableRobot Simulator

K-bot-1, museum robot

Care-O-bot 3, Care-O-bot 4, mobile service robots

[Airicist]

Mini Cable Robot IPAnema – Haptic Interaction using Admittance Control

Published on Sep 5, 2014

The video shows the Mini Cable Robot IPAnema installed at Fraunhofer IPA, Stuttgart, Germany. The admittance control allows the simulation of the system dynamic of spring, mass damper systems. Different test cases were demonstrated:
• Phase 1: Phantom force
• Phase 2: Standard dynamic
• Phase 3: Positioning of the Platform
• Phase 4: High dynamic
• Phase 5: Stiff walls
• Phase 6: Free movement

Potential applications are
• Teach in of points or paths (e.g. artistic work)
• Manipulation aids (force amplifier, virtual workspaces and paths)
• Teleoperation (e.g. minimal invasive surgery)
• Virtual Reality, coupling with physics engine
• Contact control (exerting forces on the environment)

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Concept of a multifunctional person lifter

Published on Jun 24, 2015

Developed at Fraunhofer IPA, ELEVON is the concept of a semi-autonomous lifter for lifting and moving hospital patients or residents of elderly care homes into various positions. The lifter can be called to where it is needed using a smartphone, for example, and then makes its way there fully autonomously with the aid of its 3D sensors. Under the control of just one operator, the lifter enables the person to be easily picked up, set down, moved or transported. Thanks to the intuitive operation of the lifter not only care staff is supported, the patient or residents benefits as well from the special design of the lifter, which allows ergonomically adapted, body-specific lifting of the person, thereby avoiding unpleasant or even injurious postures.

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Concept of an intelligent care cart

Published on Jun 24, 2015

Developed by Fraunhofer IPA, the prototype of an intelligent care cart provides both physical and informational support to care staff in their day-to-day work. This allows them more time to interact with patients or residents. The cart is equipped with numerous assistive features and can be connected to the call system of the care home or hospital. When a patient calls, the cart travels autonomously to the room in question. On arrival, the care staff can use the built-in touchscreen to confirm their presence and, having attended to the patient or resident, can free up the cart for its next assignment. The cart contains all the necessary care utensils and the care staff can use the display screen to record which utensils they have consumed.

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Robot-assisted riveting

Published on Feb 25, 2016

Fraunhofer IPA developed a workstation for joining processes, such as riveting, at which a human can manually execute difficult tasks while a robot system takes care of repetitive, strenuous tasks. The system is integrated into a mobile tool cart and can be docked with the manual workstation when required. This allows the assembly tasks to be optimally shared according to ergonomic and economic criteria. A safe human-robot collaboration is ensured by the stationary fixture of the riveting tool.

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Online Trajectory Optimization for Cooperative Mobile Robot Navigation

Published on May 5, 2017

In this video the problem of online trajectory optimization and cooperative collision avoidance is addressed when several mobile service robots are operating in close proximity to each other. Using online trajectory optimization to obtain smooth transitions in multi-agent path crossing scenarios applies to the demand for more flexibility and efficiency in industrial autonomous guided vehicle (AGV) systems, where these situations are traditionally solved by computing either detours or by implementing simple traffic regulations, in which one agent needs to stop to let another agent pass. In this approach, the robots share each other’s trajectories using a Cloud-based navigation infrastructure (see YouTube...) so that cooperative optimization can be performed.

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WHAT OUR ROBOTS DO AT NIGHT (Official Video)

Jan 12, 2023

CREDITS:
Director/Cut/Grading: Dominik Drossart
Camera/Assistant to Director: Calvin Müller
Light Design: Josef Sälzle
Composition/Recording/Mix/Master: Benny Hermann
Idea/Lead of Production: Marius Moosmann
Technical Lead: Felix Spenrath
BTS: Hannes Weik, Rainer Bez, Franziska Zeller