ROBOTICS MEETS ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

ROBOTICS MEETS
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

EOS sponsors the Roboy research project which aims to
advance humanoid robotics to the capability of human bodies.

Singapore, 15 February, 2017 – EOS, the global
technology and quality leader for high-end Additive Manufacturing (AM)
solutions, has announced its support of the Swiss society Devanthro and the
Roboy project at the Technical University of Munich. The goal of the Roboy
project is to advance humanoid robotics to the capability of human bodies. The
vision is to iteratively improve Roboy models until the performance is
comparable to humans in dexterity, robustness and flexibility.

The first prototype – Roboy Junior –
has muscles and tendons rather than motors in the joints. It has been developed
under substantial usage of AM: The complete skeletal body structure of Roboy,
which encases his bones and muscles, has been built with EOS systems for
Plastic Additive Manufacturing. The use of Industrial 3D Printing has several
key advantages; among them is the possibility of building complex functional
geometries as well as sustaining a fast and iterative hardware development.

Values of Additive Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing allows for
highly complex structures which are also extremely light and stable. It
provides a high degree of design freedom, optimization and integration of
functional features, and the manufacture of small batch sizes at economical
unit costs. The Roboy development benefits from all these advantages: Building
complex functional geometries without classical fabrication constraints allows
the Roboy team to implement functionality directly into the geometrical parts.
Consequently, build complexity is reduced, and many of the otherwise necessary
assembly steps can be dispensed of. For example, Roboy’s hands and forearms are
manufactured in one piece, including several joints and individual phalanxes
for each finger.

Due to Roboy’s maximal mechatronic
complexity on a minimal space, it is not possible to validate some project
requirements in simulation. Therefore, the development team needs to be able to
test the robot itself. AM is key to this because it allows the fast
manufacturing of individual components and the modularization and
parameterization of the robot’s construction, enabling an iterative hardware
development.

Rafael Hostettler, Roboy Project
Leader, commented: “In software development, rapid development cycles allow
software improvement by testing it ‘in the wild’. Additive Manufacturing allows
us to apply this approach to robotics, enabling a rapid development to find
optimal functional parts in a fraction of the time.” He continues: “EOS’ AM
technology is a key component for doing this as it enables the iterative
hardware development that is crucial for our project.”

Humanoid robotics: A vision with
social impact

In the future, with the increasing
advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics, robots will play a much
more prominent role both in society and at work – to the point that especially
dangerous and repetitive tasks can be completed by robots. In this context,
building robots with similar morphology to the human body yields critical
advantages over classical robotic approaches. First and foremost, the human
musculoskeletal system is a proven solution that leads to dexterous, dynamic
and robust robots. In addition, a human-like robot eases interaction between
human and machine significantly, making it more intuitive and natural. Over
centuries humans have adapted the environment to fit their needs, humanoid
robots can therefore fit into this environment more easily – thus avoiding
expensive adaptions. Furthermore, building robots that are compatible with the
human anatomy can help to augment and repair human mobility, with the use of
exoskeletons and prosthetics, for example.

Dr. Adrian Keppler, Chief Marketing
Officer (CMO) at EOS, said: “While a larger number of companies focusses on AI
development, only a very small number of projects worldwide develop humanoid
robotics. Therefore, we are all the more proud to support the renowned Roboy
project and see its meaning. As the strengths of Additive Manufacturing lie in
those areas where conventional manufacturing reaches its limitations, EOS’
technology is the ideal solution for a research project as ambitious as Roboy.
We are happy that the Roboy team is trusting in EOS to realize their vision.”