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Service robotics

A Sensitive Touch for Sensitive Tasks – Robots in Service Gain Independence

Fiction and reality become blurred. What was once science fiction is increasingly taking solid shape. Meanwhile, robots have a firm grip on industrial production. In Germany alone, more than 50,000 robots are employed in the automotive sector – kept in cages to carry out their assigned tasks day after day. Now the next step is about to happen: robots seek the path to independence, thus transcending even the limits of the imagination. "Service robotics" is the name for this widespread development with an uncertain outcome. Robots are being developed for areas of application ranging from entertainment to household help and security service. In the social sector, too, robots are becoming sensitive to the needs of the handicapped or elderly. All of these applications have one thing in common: the robot is leaving its cage to become increasingly independent.

Service robotics covers all robot solutions that go beyond the strictly industrial use in manufacturing. The value of service robotics in industrial applications and also in the domestic domain lies in the fact that it assists people in their work and helps make these tasks easier. Service robotics can also perform monotonous and undemanding, even unpleasant, dirty or dangerous work.

The service robots are equipped with extensive sensor systems for this work, and they adapt themselves to the specific tasks and ambient conditions. They usually operate in unstructured, complex, dynamic and sometimes even dangerous environments. Most of the future tasks assigned to robots will lie in the service sector, and this brings cultural differences to light. While European projects are concerned with social services or topics such as cleanliness and intralogistics, Asian robots are intended more for the field of entertainment and American ones for the security and military sector.

Apparently easy tasks prove to be a real challenge in service robotics.

Insiders compare the state of robotics today with the 1970s, when no one really knew what a computer could be used for. Thirty years had passed since Konrad Zuse built his Z3 in 1941. The actual development step was in fact just around the corner. Before the computer was able to begin its triumphal advance, the individual components first had to be optimized, the interplay between the components had to be improved through standards and, above all, affordable components had to be developed. The parallels with service robotics are unmistakable. In the absence of common standards, many developers repeatedly started from scratch and developed their own robotics world, resulting in systems that were incompatible with other solutions. Components were too expensive, and the technology was still immature.

As service robotics solutions are usually used for mobile applications, robot components have to be lightweight, compact and frugal in their energy consumption. It is now becoming apparent that development in this field is accelerating greatly. Among the reasons for this are the greater availability of affordable servo technology, the steady improvement in batteries for mobile applications, the falling costs of processing power and sensors as well as the further development of powerful mechatronic rotary and gripper modules.

As one of the market leaders in the field of gripping systems, SCHUNK GmbH & Co. KG, based in Lauffen/Neckar in Germany, has expanded and enhanced its expertise in this field in good time. The gripping system and robotics specialists at SCHUNK use a system of mechatronic modules, ranging from the servo-electric rotary actuator to the complete lightweight arm and the gripper or even the anthropomorphic hand. This system has proven its worth in practice and is constantly being developed.

A study by SCHUNK in collaboration with the University of Linz has shown that humanoid robots that can walk or even climb stairs can be constructed using mechatronic modules.