Power stays a big consider industrial manufacturing processes. Excessive ranges of power consumption make manufacturing costlier and exacerbate the local weather disaster. A brand new kind of robotic expertise that wants 90% much less electrical energy than standard programs is presently being developed in Saarland. The expertise makes use of light-weight, form reminiscence supplies to assemble novel, non-pneumatic, industrial gripper programs that operate with out the necessity for extra sensors. The analysis crew led by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki from Saarland College will probably be showcasing the expertise at this yr’s Hannover Messe.
Robotic arms are in use in numerous trendy industrial manufacturing settings. They’re used for a complete vary of duties, resembling holding workpieces in place, inserting elements, assembling printed circuit boards, in addition to transferring, loading or unloading components. And when they’re in use, most of them devour power continuous. Taken collectively, these industrial robotic arms devour a number of gigawatts {of electrical} energy. Lots of the gripper programs work pneumatically with compressed air, which will be unpleasantly loud. They’re typically heavy, their transferring components put on out over time, they usually are inclined to execute a relentless, extremely repetitive movement sample. This present expertise units limits on the extent of miniaturization that may be achieved, and small-scale grippers programs with small grip factors are significantly arduous to understand. Typical robotic arms are additionally arduous to reprogram rapidly, and it is typically unsafe for human employees to work together carefully with them on manufacturing traces.
However a brand new kind of drive expertise could properly make the economic robots of the long run lighter, compacter, extra versatile and extra power environment friendly. The expertise relies on light-weight form reminiscence alloys (SMAs), which the crew of engineers led by Professors Paul Motzki and Stefan Seelecke at Saarland College and the Saarbrücken Middle for Mechatronics and Automation Expertise (ZeMA) are utilizing to construct novel robotic grippers. ‘The work we’re doing may also help convey a few vital discount in power consumption, lowering manufacturing prices in addition to serving to to guard the local weather,’ explains Paul Motzki, Professor of Good Materials Methods for Revolutionary Manufacturing at Saarland College and Scientific Director/CEO at ZeMA gGmbH.
The analysis crew will probably be at this yr’s Hannover Messe the place they are going to be showcasing plenty of prototypes, together with vacuum gripper and jaw gripper programs that may safely maintain and manipulate workpieces with out requiring the continual provide of power. ‘We will management these gripper programs in actual time and every time wanted; all we have to do is apply a brief pulse of electrical present,’ explains Prof. Motzki.
The Saarbrücken gripper system is absolutely electrical and consists of bundles of ultrafine wires constituted of nickel-titanium form reminiscence alloy. These bundles of ultrafine wires act not solely as highly effective muscular tissues, however as nerve fibres as properly. The behaviour of those wire bundles is because of a particular property of nickel-titanium alloy, specifically that it may well change between two completely different crystal lattice buildings. If an electrical present flows by way of a wire constituted of nickel-titanium, the fabric heats up, inflicting it to undertake a unique crystal construction with the outcome that the wire turns into shorter. When the present is switched off, the wire cools down and returns to its earlier crystal lattice construction and its unique size. The fabric seems to ‘bear in mind’ its unique form and to return to it after being deformed — therefore the identify ‘form reminiscence’ alloy. The wires are due to this fact capable of exert remarkably giant forces for his or her dimension and will be made to set off tiny, managed motions in no matter sensible expertise the engineers have hooked up to those minute synthetic muscular tissues.
Paul Motzki explains the muscle energy of those tiny wire bundles as follows: ‘Nickel-titanium SMA has the best power density of all identified drive mechanisms, so through the use of this materials, we’re capable of exert a considerable tensile drive in very small areas.’ A wire with a thickness of solely half a millimetre can exert a pull of some 100 newtons, which is roughly the drive exerted by 10 kg. However the researchers use bundles of a lot thinner, ultrafine wires, as extra wires imply a larger floor space and due to this fact sooner cooling charges. Which means that the wire ‘muscular tissues’ can ship fast, excessive frequency motions and a secure tensile drive. The engineering crew in Saarbrücken truly maintain a world document on this space: Utilizing a bundle of 20 ultrafine wires, every with a diameter of solely 0.025 mm, they’ll exert 5 newtons of drive at a frequency of 200 hertz (i.e. 200 cycles per second). In some purposes, the dimensions of the drive delivered is most vital, in others it’s the frequency with which the drive is utilized. Utilizing the data acquired from a number of years of analysis, Motzki’s crew is ready to tailor the composition of the wire bundles by way of wire thickness and variety of wires per bundle to satisfy the necessities of particular purposes.
Utilizing modern management and design methods, the engineers are growing drives that use SMA wires to create light-weight, manoeuvrable and cleanroom-compatible industrial robots. The expertise is underneath steady refinement in analysis and PhD tasks, which has enabled the Saarbrücken researchers to develop elastic gripper programs with extremely versatile ‘fingers’ that may rapidly adapt to adjustments within the form of a workpiece.
Typical grippers often depend on suggestions from sensors, however the expertise developed in Saarbrücken is self-sensing — the sensor properties are already constructed into the system. The system is managed by a semiconductor chip. ‘The form reminiscence wires successfully act as absolutely built-in sensors offering us with all the required knowledge. An AI system exactly correlates {the electrical} resistance knowledge with a specific deformation of the wires. Consequently, the system at all times is aware of the precise place of every bundle of form reminiscence wires. The information-trained neural networks are capable of calculate positional info effectively and precisely even within the face of disruptive influences,’ explains Paul Motzki. The engineers can due to this fact program the system to carry out extremely exact actions. By specifying {the electrical} resistance values, they’ll management the wires as wanted. ‘Not like the usual industrial robots in use as we speak, reprogramming is fast and simple with our system and might even be achieved on the fly when vital. The gripper can adapt to the geometry of various workpieces whereas working,’ says Motzki.
The prototype jaw gripper developed for industrial purposes strikes each rapidly and with pinpoint accuracy. The gripper holds the workpiece securely in a pincer-like grip so {that a} robotic arm dealing with system can then manoeuvre the workpiece to its desired vacation spot. The prototype being exhibited at this yr’s Hannover Messe can exert a drive of 4 newtons, however the expertise is scalable by way of dimension, jaw stroke and drive. The self-sensing properties of SMA wires allow the exact place and situation of the grippers to be monitored with none further exterior sensors. And the grippers are capable of maintain the workpiece in place with out requiring power to be provided. Relying on the gripping utility, the Saarbrücken expertise can obtain power financial savings of over 90% relative to the traditional pneumatic grippers in use as we speak.
One other prototype being proven by the analysis crew at Hannover Messe 2025 is a vacuum gripper that has versatile gripper fingers with vacuum suction cups situated on the fingertips. Right here, too, a brief electrical pulse is all that’s wanted to generate and later launch a load-bearing vacuum. The vacuum gripper mechanism is achieved by arranging bundles of ultrathin SMA wires right into a round muscle round a skinny steel disc that may be made to flip up or down, like a frog clicker toy. Making use of {an electrical} pulse makes the wires within the ‘muscle’ contract and the disc flips its place, pulling on a rubber membrane that creates a vacuum if the gripper fingertips are involved with a floor. As soon as once more, no electrical energy is required with the intention to maintain the workpiece in place, even when the gripper is holding a heavy object at an angle over an prolonged interval. ‘And the self-sensing performance signifies that our system has built-in situation monitoring, so the gripper is aware of if the vacuum created is sufficient to assist the load’ says Motzki.
Background
The analysis crew headed by Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki makes use of form reminiscence expertise for a variety of purposes that embody modern cooling programs, robotic grippers and modern valves and pumps. The expertise continues to be developed by graduate college students and post-graduates conducting analysis as a part of their doctoral dissertation tasks. The crew’s outcomes have been communicated extensively in scientific conferences in addition to in high-impact journals, with quite a few papers receiving worldwide recognition. The analysis work has additionally acquired assist from quite a few sources, together with the multinational engineering and expertise firm Bosch and from the Saarland state authorities, which has supplied funding by way of the ERDF tasks ‘iProGro’ and ‘iSMAT’.
