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Mobile robotics

In the fast lane

Combining automated guided vehicles with a cobot is nothing new. To date, however, these systems have not been affordable for medium-sized companies. Models available on the market start at around €25,000. Solutions with an integrated robot arm start at €70,000. It is difficult to achieve widespread use in the market. This is where Low Cost Automation brings about change.

For four years now, igus® has been putting AGVs through their paces in-house. For example, driverless shelves that deliver mail and other supplies to offices. Or around 30 mobile robots that are on the move in production to bring transport or rotary stacking containers quickly to your warehouses. The lessons learnt are then incorporated into the development of the igus® robots.

The definition for the lighthouse project is: a mobile robot with integrated HMI and vision that could even tidy up an office on its own. The road map envisages that different systems will emerge along the way. This year, igus® is launching a slimmed-down version for the education sector, which will be priced at less than €10,000 - including the robot arm!How is such a cost-effective price possible? The development approach pursues a bottom-to-top strategy: components such as classic safety laser scanners are not included in the basic package. The reason is that these components would go beyond the price scope. Nevertheless, it has been ensured that the solution can be easily retrofitted for industrial requirements. For example, all VDA5050 specifications are largely observed.

There are other technical aspects that the project takes into account. The wider the range of tasks for a mobile robot, the greater the stroke and travel of the gripper must be. There are already solutions for this too, but they do not fit into the low-cost concept in terms of price. For this reason, igus® is presenting an affordable gripper this year that has a large stroke and long travel and great flexibility when gripping different geometries.

The vision behind all these development efforts goes beyond simple but effective applications, such as transporting components from A to B. Cleaning tasks or serving coffee directly at the workplace show that applications can be found in all areas of life.