A new Generation of Light-Weight Robot Arms and Multifingered Hands

The keynote lecture describes recent design and development efforts in DLR’s robotics lab towards a new generation of ultra-light weight robots with articulated hands (Fig.1). The design of fully sensorized joints with complete state feedback and the underlying mechanisms are outlined. The second joint torque-controlled light-weight arm generation is available now [1], as well as the second generation of a highly integrated 4 finger-hand with 13 actuators and more than 100 sensors [2]. Thus we hope that important steps towards a new generation of service and personal robots have been achieved, with space robotics becoming a major driver due to the need for advanced “robonaut” technologies.

[1]  Hong Liu,et al.  DLR-Hand II: next generation of a dextrous robot hand , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[2]  Alin Albu-Schäffer,et al.  On a new generation of torque controlled light-weight robots , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).