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.)...

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...

Task 3 During the first all-over motion test, we find out that the load torque of some drive motors reached a critical value. The reason here was the high friction in the Bowden cables and in the rope lead-throughs. To reduce the friction influence, we assembled Teflon coats over the related ropes for better frictional...

Taks 7: System testing Within our last experiment steps we evaluated and optimized the entire robot system. In the first step we examined the object recognition and position estimation of Camera A. The camera configuration and image processing were improved until the derivation did not left a range of ±50mm. In the next step...