Yanu, the fully autonomous bartending robot, looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Standing at nearly 10 feet tall, the assembly is large, cylindrical and sleek. On its countertop are several touchscreens that display drink choices, ranging from martinis to old fashioneds. As soon as you input your order on a screen, Yanu’s single robotic arm springs to life. It grabs a glass and swivels 180 degrees to the ice dispenser. Next, the arm raises the glass, navigating it along a series of ingredient dispensers that hang from the ceiling. After moving through the correct combination, the arm lowers itself and hands you a finished drink.

Though this robotic feat is impressive enough, mixology is just the beginning. In addition to making drinks, Yanu — which is powered by artificial intelligence — handles credit card and mobile payments, verifies a client’s drinking age and communicates with patrons, whether suggesting a drink or cracking a joke. Capable of making up to 100 drinks in one hour and up to 1,500 cocktails in a single load, Yanu is poised to revolutionize the food and beverage industry.

This robot is the brainchild of Alan Adojaan, CEO and founder of YANU, an Estonia-based robotics company. Despite the fact that the company’s first product is a highly sophisticated service robot, Adojaan’s background is in hospitality, not robotics. As anyone in food service or bartending can tell you, the industry has its fair share of challenges, especially now. Examples include a high staff turnover rate, labor shortages, high recurring expenses and an emerging need for contactless food and beverage service.

“It was a constant struggle to keep the business going,” Adojaan reflects. “On an especially busy night, I realized something had to change. Soon after, I had the idea to develop a robotic solution.”

Sophisticated Robots Require Sophisticated Design Tools

Within four years, Adojaan and his team of designers and engineers transformed Yanu from a single idea to multiple prototypes. Unlike other robotic bartenders on the market, Adojaan’s solution is compact and mobile, able to be collapsed into a 20-foot shipping container for transport. Yanu can also communicate with patrons and is fully autonomous; other bartending bots are non-communicative, only semi-autonomous and require weeks to set up. In addition to its plug-and-play nature, Yanu is cloud-based, easy to operate, clean and refill and comes with apps for administration, monitoring and drink ordering.

Making such an advanced robot a reality — especially when “no one took me seriously at first,” Adojaan says — required the latest in robotics design technology and computer-aided design (CAD) software. For these reasons, Adojaan and his team designed and developed Yanu using Solid Edge®, Siemens’ ecosystem of sophisticated software tools that address all aspects of the product design and development process including mechanical and electrical design, simulation, data management and more. Whereas designing complex, intelligent robotic systems can slow the product development process, Solid Edge enabled the YANU team to get its revolutionary bartending bot to market quickly — all while overcoming many of the typical pitfalls that can affect the design process for new products.

According to YANU industrial designer Ken Ruut, the design and engineering team utilized the following Solid Edge tools and capabilities to make Adojaan’s vision a reality:

Sheet metal design. Unlike other CAD programs, Solid Edge streamlines the sheet metal product development process. It includes sheet metal-specific features like emboss, dimple, bead, multi-edge and contour flanges, straight brake and etch, as well as applications for analysis and numerical control programming to reduce design time. “The sheet metal tools allowed us to calculate component surfaces,” Ruut explains. “We could then send the results directly to the CNC machines, which was really helpful.”

Data management. Solid Edge incorporates rich data management functionality, enabling budding companies like YANU to work efficiently with their growing number of CAD files. It also lets users review and edit files and perform revision and release operations on parts, assemblies and drawings. “Data management is our friend,” Ruut says. “We need to keep an eye on all moving parts to ensure everything is ordered on time, and Solid Edge lets us do that easily.”

3D printing. “We used 3D printing a lot for prototyping purposes, and Solid Edge has great tools that support those goals,” Ruut says. For example, using topology optimization, the software allows designers to create unique shapes that are well-suited for 3D printing. It also integrates computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) tools for creating and updating tool paths associated with CAD models. And finally, it supports the output of models to in-house 3D printers and external additive manufacturing services.

KeyShot rendering engine. Solid Edge includes KeyShot®, a real-time 3D rendering and animation software that generates realistic images of product designs for internal or external use. “We used the KeyShot engine a lot to get a better sense of what we were designing,” Ruut says. “It was a breeze to use, and it gave us realistic, immersive renderings of Yanu — complete with lights and reflections.” Thanks to this integration, designers like Ruut can launch KeyShot directly from the Solid Edge interface. They can also automatically send designs and push any changes to KeyShot without losing any settings.

Electrical routing. Solid Edge features an electrical routing module that supports the creation, routing and organization of wires, cables and bundles in mechanical assemblies. “We take advantage of this tool to establish correct wire lengths when routing the wires through clips and channels,” Ruut says. In addition to the routing tool, which allows designers to automatically route wires around complex 3D models, Solid Edge includes other tools that address other aspects of the electromechanical design process. For example, it has a wiring design module for creating wiring diagrams and generating service documentation, as well as a harness design module for designing harnesses and form boards.

A Single Design Platform

Thanks to these software capabilities, Solid Edge unlocked many benefits for the YANU team, such as bridging the gap between the designers that worked on Yanu’s outward appearance and the engineers that worked on the robot’s internal mechanics. According to Adojaan, getting the designers and engineers on the same page wasn’t always easy. “The designers wanted things to look good while the engineers championed functionality,” he explains. “Solid Edge enabled us to overcome these issues, as it reconciles both within its immersive design environment.”

Solid Edge also provided the YANU team with a single platform for all its product development data, eliminating many of the inconsistencies that inevitably result when different people in different cities are working on various aspects of the same robotic design. “At one point, Yanu’s interior mechanical parts were being designed in Solid Edge, while its exterior bells and whistles — many of which are handmade — were being built in other programs,” Adojaan says. “By the time we assembled our first prototype, we realized some things didn’t match. Last year, we decided to bring everything into Solid Edge, and it’s made a world of difference in terms of creating a single, frictionless workflow.”

Coming to a Bar Near You

By eliminating design inconsistencies and streamlining the robotic development process, Solid Edge enabled Adojaan to bring his bartending robot to market quickly. “I could even start selling Yanu to clients before we had one built,” he says. “This ability is critical for startups and other small companies, as it helps us reach out to clients for early feedback, test the market and get our products out faster.”

A testament to his passion for and belief in Solid Edge, YANU is a member of Solid Edge for Startups, a program that provides early-stage companies with free access to Solid Edge for a year. Adojaan has even spoken at Solid Edge University events, which give users a first-hand look at some of the software’s latest features and functionality. “Solid Edge helped us balance innovation and functionality in creating Yanu,” Adojaan says. “Without it, we’d be in trouble.”

The Advantages of Robotic Bartenders

A contactless, fully autonomous robot bartender, Yanu eliminates many new and ongoing challenges affecting the food and beverage industry — especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These issues include the following:

• Rising labor costs and staffing shortages. A cost-effective staffing option, Yanu doesn’t require paychecks or take sick days. It can also take on late or long shifts at venues like night clubs or airports. Business owners can expect to make back their money on Yanu after only 9 to 10 months of operation.
• A new need for contactless bars. Fully automated and contactless, Yanu requires no human interaction, making it an ideal solution for the post-pandemic service world. Its accompanying apps support interactive mobile and touch screen ordering.
• Inconsistent service speed and quality. Unlike even the best human bartenders, Yanu makes precise cocktails every time, minimizing the costly effects of overpours.
• Bartending bottlenecks. Capable of making 100 drinks in one hour, Yanu is the equivalent of four bartenders.

Alan Adojaan, founder and CEO of YANU.

Yanu, the fully autonomous bartending robot, is the equivalent of four human bartenders.

A rendering of Yanu in KeyShot.

Solid Edge supports KeyShot for generating realistic images of product designs.

Yanu in the Solid Edge design environment.

An exploded view of one of Yanu’s components — the drink dock — in Solid Edge.

A close-up of Yanu’s robotic arm in Solid Edge.

A close-up of the robotic bar, including the drink dock, touch screens and robotic arm.

Sponsored By Solid Edge from Siemens

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Robots are becoming more complex, forcing designers and engineers to approach the design and development process for robotic systems in new ways. From incorporating disparate electromechanical systems to quickly performing motion, thermal and stress analyses, the list of design challenges is extensive. These issues can easily increase a company’s costs, drive up development time and affect time to market.

One solution is to use sophisticated, tightly integrated product development tools that empower engineers to design and simulate mechanical and electrical systems with greater ease. These tools — which accelerate the 3D mechanical design process, address the integration of electric circuits and analyze stress, vibration and motion, to name a few benefits — go a long way toward minimizing design time and reducing time to delivery for robotics manufacturers.

These are just some of the rewards that Powermig, a company specializing in robotic welding technologies, has recently reaped, thanks to Siemens Digital Industries Software. Based in Brazil, Powermig specializes in robotic welding technologies such as robotic welding cells and automated material handling systems. For years, the company had modeled its electrical projects using two-dimensional and paint-based software systems. In addition to significantly extending the company’s product development time, this approach made it difficult for design engineers to turn around post-project modifications in a timely manner.

The Switch to Advanced Product Development Software

To overcome these challenges, Powermig switched to using Solid Edge®. Part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, Solid Edge incorporates a suite of affordable, easy-to-use tools that address all aspects of the product development process. Specifically, Powermig implemented Solid Edge to address the following challenges:

• Improve response times for new commercial projects.
• Enhance project quality and standardization.
• Eliminate wasted time due to difficulties updating projects.
• Integrate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems with Solid Edge.

Since 2019, Powermig has utilized Solid Edge 3D and electric design tools. Representing the future of three-dimensional product development, the software’s 3D design capabilities include generative modeling, as well as additive manufacturing and reverse engineering tools based on convergent modeling technology. Solid Edge electric design tools support the design and simulation of electrical systems — from simple electrical circuits to complex wire harnesses. Within the software, design engineers can route wiring and place components in 3D assemblies, analyze models to calculate correct wire lengths and harness designs, simulate circuits to ensure they perform according to specifications and much more.

Achieving New Levels of Automation

Thanks to Solid Edge, Powermig has been able to produce higher-quality, safer products, offer its clients standard and customized solutions and automate design processes. The company’s designers and engineers can now create new, innovative robotic welding systems with greater ease using the software’s three-dimensional design and simulation tools. Solid Edge includes built-in finite element analysis (FEA) tools, which the Powermig design engineers use to digitally validate robotic part and assembly designs within the Solid Edge environment, reducing the need for physical prototypes and speeding development time.

For example, Solid Edge automates the creation of finite element meshes, makes it easy for engineers to define boundary conditions and incorporates comprehensive graphical post-processing tools. It also enables designers and engineers to quickly perform various analyses, including full motion, stress, vibration, thermal and buckling simulations — all of which are important for optimizing robotic systems. Powermig engineers also frequently use the software’s weight and mass center analysis tools to optimize the gear reduction and motor sizing for their robotic assemblies.

Powermig engineers frequently utilize Solid Edge’s built-in FEA tools to optimize robotic structures throughout the design process.

Additional benefits of using the software include:

Reduced design, development and delivery times. Using their comprehensive database of 3D drawings, Powermig design engineers can assemble multiple configurations for robotic welding cells using Solid Edge’s Assembly Features. Thanks to automated commands within the software’s Assembly environment, designers can easily construct features like cutouts, holes, chamfers and threads. They can also mirror and pattern these features. Since implementing Solid Edge, Powermig has reported a 30-percent reduction in the time it takes to finish projects. The software has also enabled the company to make post-project design changes quickly, which has significantly reduced the time it takes to deliver projects to customers compared to previous processes.

Greater support for custom designs. Thanks to Solid Edge, Powermig design engineers better understand their customers’ needs and can design and deliver custom equipment. The company has also reduced its turnaround time for quotes from suppliers and improved the details of its projects as a whole. As a result, Powermig has become a much more agile company, delivering more custom projects and gaining competitiveness in the market.

More accurate product costing. Using Solid Edge’s electrical design tools, Powermig has improved its inventory management and product costing capabilities. For example, the company has reduced the amount of component shortages in its material requirements planning (MRP) system. It has also improved the accuracy of its product costing by reducing the amount of rework required during the production process. The company now enjoys 99-percent product costing accuracy upon project completions.

Powermig’s Next Steps

Since implementing Solid Edge, Powermig has gained a strong foothold in the robotic welding market. With its continued partnership with Siemens Digital Industries Software, the company now plans to implement additional Siemens tools — including a cloud-based, design-centric project collaboration tool — to carve out an even greater space in the South American industrial sector. Powermig’s next challenge will be to integrate all of its project information using the Teamcenter portfolio.

To learn more about how Solid Edge can benefit your automation application, visit: https://www.siemens.com/robotics-design.

Additional Artwork

Since implementing Solid Edge, Powermig has reported a 30-percent reduction in the time it takes to finish its robotic welding projects.

Powermig engineers create new, innovative robotic welding systems with greater ease using Solid Edge’s 3D design and simulation tools.

Sponsored By Solid Edge from Siemens

The post Improving the design efficiency of welding robots appeared first on The Robot Report.

Robots continue to break new ground. You can find them applying paint to a car in an automotive factory, performing surgery in a hospital or cleaning the floor in an airport. No longer just an exclusive instrument of manufacturing, robots are expanding beyond production lines to areas like space exploration, food processing and education, to name a few.

As robots become more universal and push into new applications, they’re becoming more complex, forcing designers and engineers to approach robotic design and development in new ways. Some of the challenges designers must now address include increasingly complex automation needs, the shift to more intricate robotic architectures and greater machine intelligence.

Overcoming these design and development hurdles — and delivering robots on time and on budget — requires an ecosystem of sophisticated software tools that work seamlessly together. With access to the right tools, you’ll be able to:

• Create and implement digital twins of your products, while supporting mechanical and electrical designs, simulations and data management.
• Facilitate collaboration between your design, engineering and marketing teams, as well as with suppliers, customers and other external stakeholders.
• Unlock benefits at each stage of the product development process, lowering costs and decreasing your time to market.

Improving Robotic Product Development with the Right Software

The shift to more complex, intelligent robotic devices and systems can slow the product development process, delaying your time to market, overrunning project budgets and eroding product quality. You can address these challenges by implementing an integrated software suite that enables designers, engineers and other stakeholders to work together more effectively during the product design process. These software tools also facilitate the exchange of information between everyone involved, making it easier to see and react quickly to changes as a robotic design advances.

In addition, these software tools can support you in implementing a digital twin strategy as part of the design and development process. A digital twin —  a detailed, three-dimensional model of a robot — can add tremendous value to a product design as it progresses. You can then leverage this data to optimize the performance of both individual components and complete systems, leading to the creation of robots that support faster cycle times, require little maintenance and meet strict safety standards.

One example of a solution that checks all these boxes is Solid Edge®, a comprehensive software suite that enables even small-sized manufacturing companies to digitize their design and development processes. Thanks to its portfolio of tools that encompass mechanical and electrical design, simulation, manufacturing, technical publications and data management, Solid Edge unlocks benefits in 12 key areas:

1. Create and visualize new robotic designs. Thanks to integrated photorealistic rendering tools, Solid Edge lets you create high-end visuals and animations of proposed products and then bring these assets to life. These visuals make for sophisticated marketing materials that clearly demonstrate your innovations and can help you stand out from the crowd. And, with Solid Edge Augmented Reality, you can apply your true-scale digital prototypes to their real-world environments, enabling you to showcase your design in its intended environment before it’s even built.
2. Manage design requirements with better traceability. Product design is driven by requirements. Solid Edge incorporates a Requirements Management module that lets you link and track key design requirements during the design and manufacturing processes. It also makes these requirements easily accessible to all internal and external stakeholders, enabling you to deliver a successful product that meets customer requirements and complies with important industry regulations.
3. Accelerate 3D mechanical design. With three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) functions, Solid Edge enables faster, more efficient robotic designs. The software makes it easy to reuse proven components and standard catalog parts, reducing your development costs, accelerating product delivery and minimizing business risks. Solid Edge also provides users with the freedom to design naturally and iteratively, and it streamlines the process of finding 3D models thanks to integrated cloud-based catalog options. This tight integration runs directly in Solid Edge, granting you immediate access to millions of manufacturers’ parts.
4. Design electrical circuits and wire harnesses with ease. To better manage the increasing number and complexities of electrical components and systems, Solid Edge enables you to quickly and easily create electrical wiring schematics and wire harnesses. The software’s Wiring Design module includes automated functions that help you select wire gauges and fuses, and it even checks and validates the circuits’ behavior. Another tool, Solid Edge Harness Design, automates the design-to-production flow, making the wire harness manufacturing process a more efficient process.
5. Quickly integrate electrical components into mechanical designs. With Solid Edge, you can overcome several electromechanical design challenges that result from routing wiring circuitry or packaging printed circuit boards (PCB) in confined spaces. Thanks to its suite of electrical design tools, you can identify design issues earlier in the development process, all while eliminating the need to create physical prototypes. For example, the Solid Edge Electrical Routing module routes wires and wire harnesses around complex 3D models automatically and even establishes correct wire lengths. And with Solid Edge PCB Collaboration, you can easily integrate PCB designs into electromechanical assemblies.
6. Optimize your design’s kinematic and dynamic performance. Solid Edge Simulation provides integrated kinematic and dynamic analyses of Solid Edge assemblies. By simulating a design’s kinematic behavior, you can better understand the true dynamic function of your robotic system and optimize its motion characteristics. And, identifying potential issues early in the design cycle lets you resolve issues prior to manufacturing, significantly reducing your costs and time to delivery.
7. Analyze stress, vibration and cooling. With Solid Edge Simulation, you can identify and avoid design issues earlier in the product development cycle. For example, you can analyze a system’s vibration behavior using built-in harmonic response analyses, ensuring your robotic system avoids any resonance issues. The software also delivers structural simulation results to uncover the natural frequencies of vibration, and it can identify a design’s buckling loads. In addition, steady and transient heat transfer analysis tools gauge a model’s temperature distribution, validating cooling performance. Thanks to these digital analyses, you can resolve stress, vibration and cooling issues prior to manufacturing, minimizing costs and prototyping.
8. Visualize robotic work cells. Solid Edge provides tools for validating how a complete manufacturing work cell will function. Using animations created by the software’s various CAD functions, you can evaluate the suitability of a robot or motion path within the proposed cell. These capabilities also let you visualize how multiple elements will work together, ensuring parts don’t interfere with each other.
9. Manufacture parts more efficiently. With Solid Edge CAM Pro — a modular, flexible computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) suite of numerical control (NC) programming solutions — you can create and easily update tool paths associated with CAD models. This tool even supports the output of models to in-house 3D printers and external AM services. In addition, CAM Pro grants you access to a cloud-based bureau for quoting and manufacturing parts in a variety of materials, improving your productivity for both traditional machining and AM technologies.
10. Manage projects and engineering changes. Solid Edge includes integrated design management tools and pre-configured workflows that enable your various teams to access and track projects even as designs change. From integrated data management tools to product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities, these resources can help you identify critical path activities and manage changes more efficiently.
11. Achieve cloud-based collaboration. Siemens’ Teamcenter Share app, which works with Solid Edge and other CAD formats, enables cloud-based collaboration for CAD data in multiple formats. This ability to share multi-CAD design data in a controlled way:
    • Protects intellectual property.
    • Facilitates communication with suppliers and customers.
    • Enables customers to view products in real-world settings.
    • Reduces design errors and speeds the product development process.
    • Showcases in-process designs, thanks to built-in augmented reality capabilities.
12. Streamline commissioning, installation and service. Solid Edge offers various tools to make certain your robot is installed, used and maintained correctly. With its 3D CAD capabilities, you can view models on mobile devices and enable remote access to design data. In addition, the software’s Technical Publications module lets you create interactive user guides, maintenance instructions and spare parts catalogs to ensure all proper installation and service procedures are clearly communicated. This ability to produce top-quality documents in-house also reduces the need for specialist technical authors or external publishing services.

Exceeding Your Design Expectations

Thanks to Solid Edge and its affordable, easy-to-use software tools, designers and engineers can unlock many time and cost benefits throughout the product development process for robotic devices and systems. Already, users have reported the following:

• Faster time-to-market.
• Lower business risks.
• A reduction in costly, time-consuming prototyping.
• Time savings of 75 percent on specific design tasks.
• More error-free collaboration between development and production teams.
• The implementation of customer requirements with greater speed and flexibility.

To learn more about how Solid Edge can benefit your robotic design, please visit: https://www.siemens.com/robotics-design.

The Evolving World of Robotics
Three major trends within the world of robotics are contributing to the shifting design and development needs of robotic manufacturers. These trends include:

Smart Factory initiatives. Demand for robotics is growing in the industrial, commercial and consumer sectors. Currently, more than 2.4 million industrial robots operate in factories around the world, especially in the United States, Japan, China, South Korea and Germany. However, robotics on the factory floor is just one aspect of a larger trend: the rise of the Smart Factory, which is also known as Industry 4.0. From healthcare to food processing, companies across many industries are seeking to optimize their production processes with initiatives that encompass digitization, advanced manufacturing (AM), artificial intelligence and analytics. With these technologies in place, manufacturers can boost their operational efficiency, improve product quality and react quickly to changing market demands.

Global health concerns. Many manufacturers are looking to lower the risks involved in operating a manufacturing environment with human workers, with the ultimate goal of mitigating production and supply chain disruptions. To that end, robots can replace workers that perform risky, repetitive or physically taxing tasks — from moving goods in laboratories, hospitals and warehouses, to cleaning and disinfecting public areas. As a recent case in point, many companies harnessed the power of robotics to enable social distancing and protect their workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shifting robotic architectures. Despite the accelerated drive toward automation, many manufacturers of robotic devices and systems face new challenges. For one, these devices are growing in complexity, requiring more sensors and electronics than ever before. Caught in the crosshairs, robotics manufacturers must address these challenges or suffer from poor product quality, delayed time to market and higher lifecycle costs. In a traditional robotic architecture, all actuated components are connected to a central controller, which holds all the logic and programming required for operation. Now, the programming logic has become more distributed, running on smaller controllers that are located on each actuated component. The result: robotic platforms are less centralized, more modular and more customizable.

Additionally, modern robots are much more intelligent. Instead of blindly following a linear programming routine, these systems utilize sensors and vision systems to gather feedback from their environment. Many also leverage machine learning technologies to augment their capabilities and adjust behavior on the fly, leading to the rise of a new class of collaborative robots — also called cobots — that can work alongside humans.

Sponsored By Solid Edge from Siemens

The post How to improve the product development process for robotic systems appeared first on The Robot Report.

Philip Norman, Branwen Norman and Tom Foale presenting the iBOID and EXTRM SC 2.0 robots.

Imagine a robot that’s as strong as an armadillo and as nimble as a gecko. One that’s as tenacious as salmon swimming upstream, as dexterous as a chimp using tools and as tough as a cockroach in a radioactive area. Thanks to sophisticated, tightly integrated product development tools, these robotic systems are no longer just an engineering fantasy; they’re becoming a reality in industries ranging from agriculture to defense.

Founded in 2015, Ross Robotics designs and manufactures modular, ground-based robots that are inspired by the natural world. What differentiates its approach is the fact that its robotic modules fit together and are configurable in many ways. This modular robotic delivery platform, called Robosynthesis, has resulted in the creation of many multi-mission robots — from security bots equipped with RGB cameras, infrared cameras and movement detectors, to autonomous robots that can navigate hazardous locations.

The iBOID can swim and tackle tough terrain — an ideal combination for surveillance.

Whereas typical building-block systems restrict users to connecting pieces in two or three directions, the Robosynthesis platform has no such limits. Thanks to Solid Edge design and development software, Philip Norman, Ross Robotics co-founder and chief technical officer (CTO), designed the geometries of this system based on axial and orthogonal repositioning principles. In other words, end users can fit the components together at any angle, and the resulting composite angles are infinitely adjustable. “Our robots might all look different, but they use the same parts,” Norman explains. “This capability lets us assemble and reassemble off-the-shelf robots for different purposes — all on demand.”

From Concept to Reality with Solid Edge

Norman conceived the Robosynthesis platform two decades ago while he was living in France. At the time, an engineer friend introduced Norman to Solid Edge as they explored a new construction toy together. “It was a revelation,” Norman says. “What started as a dreamy intellectual idea suddenly became sharp and clear. The more I explored Solid Edge, the more functionality I discovered.”

Using Solid Edge’s comprehensive suite of product development tools, Norman could simply sketch an idea, then extrude the drawing to create a three-dimensional shape — putting bits and pieces together to create an assembly. “I would update a part, and then the software would automatically update the entire assembly,” Norman says. “It was pure delight. And to top it all off, I could break up an assembly and start over whenever I wanted. There were lots of little ‘eureka!’ moments as I grew quicker and more confident in the software.”

Norman’s ideas continued to evolve. For several years, he provided college students with the opportunity to study mechatronics and prototyping at the French Institute for Advanced Mechanics (IFMA), which is now the French graduate engineering school, SIGMA Clermont. Shortly after, a suggestion from a family member led Norman to the field of modular robotics. “My main challenge was to create and build one part that could join several components together and rotate,” Norman says.

Norman has worked as an artist, author and designer. He is also the co-founder of Ross Robotics.

Achieving Complexity Through Simplicity

Norman’s solution came in the form of a universal connector that fixes in any direction. A critical aspect of the Robosynthesis platform, this patented connector lets users easily alter and update a Ross Robotics system without any technical expertise. The company’s current iteration of the connector, called the Slimline, uses canted coil springs and has a thickness of only 7.5 millimeters when mated. Each half of the Slimline is formed from selectively metallized polymers to create a sequence of conductors and insulators. And, the connector’s cone-to-cone mating is inherently robust when subjected to vibration, thermal cycles and sudden mechanical shock.

Other design milestones for Ross Robotics included a special jack plug that enables data transfer, communication and power charging, as well as CLAWWS Wheels, which — inspired by webbed duck feet — increase robotic traction and climbing in difficult environments.

“Finding the precise geometries for our modular system took a long time,” Norman admits. “But with Solid Edge, I never got stuck. I’d explore one version of a part, save it and then try another version. It was really helpful to keep all my options open.” Thanks to the software’s synchronous modeling technology, Norman also saved time. Whereas he used to have to budget an entire day for certain tasks, he was able to complete the same tasks in only a few hours with Solid Edge — a 75 percent reduction in time.

Drawing on the animal kingdom for inspiration, Norman designed the Ross Robots to have a low center of gravity for stability, as well as a tail that acts as a damper and prevents flipping. Other components are purposely springy and flexible, enabling the robots to be more agile and resilient. All components are manufactured using a computer numerical control (CNC) machine and then vacuum-cast in different plastics — a rigid, cost-effective material.

The plastics are then coated in a fine layer of metal, eliminating the need to use separate metal components. This metalization process, which also applies to the universal connector, leads to stronger, lighter and lower-cost parts. “Material science has been a whole new learning curve for me,” Norman says. “But thanks to Solid Edge, I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge about it — such as how to design parts for strength and flexibility.”

Norman uses Siemens Solid Edge software to design and develop his robots.

Functional Features, Elegant Design

One of Norman’s goals was to ensure the Robosynthesis Modular Platform was easy for untrained end users to understand and use. As a result, the platform doesn’t require any bolting at the industrial assembly stage; everything presses together and clicks. Other benefits since adopting Solid Edge have included:

• Easy development of a wide range of components
• Time savings of 75 percent on certain tasks
• Ease of assembly for untrained end users
• Positive feedback from potential customers
• The ability to produce high-quality engineering drawings
• The ability to render product images to support early marketing efforts

“The creative process works in mysterious ways,” Norman says. “A big challenge is to see where a concept might be going — and that’s not necessarily easy.” Thanks to Norman’s determination, however, the Robosynthesis platform holds many patents and is now attracting intense interest among government, commercial and charitable bodies for applications like demining, agriculture and infrastructure maintenance.

“Our robots are really only components,” Norman says. “And Solid Edge is key for us because it’s great for designing components.”

To learn more about Solid Edge, visit: https://www.siemens.com/robotics-design.

Norman testing a naked robot platform outside the Ross Robotics headquarters.

Sponsored By Solid Edge from Siemens

The post Designing nature-inspired components for modular robotics platform appeared first on The Robot Report.

In many ways, ABii is just like a classroom assistant. She provides her students with step-by-step math and reading instructions and can adapt to their individual learning habits. She knows when a student isn’t paying attention and enjoys trading high fives for right answers. But in other ways, ABii is different. She stands at only fifteen inches high, has dazzling, purple lights for eyes and is packed with colorful wires. ABii is an intelligent robotic tutor, and she’s already revolutionizing learning for children in kindergarten to fifth grade (K-5).

Built from decades of university research in child-robot interaction and educational intervention, ABii is the brainchild of startup Van Robotics. This multidisciplinary team, made up of computer scientists, roboticists and certified educators, is breaking new ground in the fields of social robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since its founding in 2016, the company has focused on developing smart robot tutors to improve the learning process for K-5 children with cognitive, learning and developmental difficulties. Its flagship ABii robot personalizes math and reading lessons with fun social interactions, from fist bumps to dance parties. Able to work with any Wifi-enabled device, she also adapts her interactions with each student based on sophisticated machine learning (ML) techniques.

In addition to ABii, Van Robotics has a second robot tutor in development — MARii, a musical assistant robot that teaches older adults with mild cognitive impairment how to play the piano. Equipped with sensors to detect stress and frustration in its users, MARii uses music to improve the adults’ cognitive and emotional health. Clinical trials funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) are set to begin for MARii this summer.

Moving Beyond the Screens

Today, ABii is used by thousands of children all around the world, including in over 30 states in the United States, England, Germany, Emirates and Qatar. And the results are in: In a 2018 efficacy study among Kansas, Alabama, New York and Texas schools, Van Robotics reports that 67 percent of students that tested below proficient in mathematics improved by an average of 34 percent after just two to three sessions with ABii. “Children naturally want to engage with robots,” says Laura Boccanfuso, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, Van Robotics. “With ABii, we wanted to make sure we were designing and engineering a robot that would work well with them.”

This engagement owes to Boccanfuso’s philosophy that robots are the physical embodiment of software, bringing more value to the learning process than traditional screen-based tools. For this reason — after first sketching her ideas for ABii on a napkin — she spent a lot of time thinking about the fine-tuning the robot’s design. “Our goal was to engage children in a way that goes beyond screen-based interfaces,” Boccanfuso says. “We appreciate that ABii is an engineered, physically embodied robot that can model scenarios for students in ways that aren’t possible with screen-based apps.”

Since that initial napkin sketch, it was critical for Boccanfuso to get ABii’s physical form just right. An advanced mechatronic package, ABii incorporates years of research in child-robot interaction. At 15 inches tall, the robot makes eye contact with children when placed on top of a desk. She has two degrees of freedom in each arm, as well as two in her head, totaling six. She is purposely larger than a toy — yet not too big that she intimidates students. She is also human enough to express emotions using the body language children are already familiar with — yet not too human-like that she is off-putting.

“We knew ABii needed to have a large head with large eyes and look pleasant — much like a familiar cartoon character a child would enjoy watching,” Boccanfuso says. “We also deliberately designed her for students that like to touch, move, hold, hug and carry objects. Having too many degrees of freedom in her arms and legs could make her prone to damage.”

Using Machine Learning to Detect Performance and Attention

In addition to her child-friendly aesthetics, ABii incorporates sophisticated software that leverages ML models, such as Bayesian networks, and predictive analytics to personalize her interactions with students and pace the lessons in a way that optimizes their learning process. What makes ABii truly groundbreaking is the fact that these ML models are constantly being trained using the behavioral data from the thousands of students already using her. “Thanks to this data, we can better understand the patterns of usage that are impacting student performance, which ABii can respond to on-the-fly,” Boccanfuso says.

This unique ability to train ABii’s ML models also enables the robot to respond to a student’s level of attention. For example, in combination with vision systems on both the Wifi-enabled device and on the robot itself, ABii can “understand” how well a student is paying attention. “Face orientation and gaze tell us a lot about what a child may be missing during a lesson,” Boccanfuso says. “ABii uses this data to repeat the things the student may have missed to fill in any knowledge gaps.”

Together, these two levels — performance and attention — enable ABii to pace each lesson and provide students with appropriate responses in real time. For example, if a student misses several problems in a row, ABii knows to apply extra positive reinforcement. If a student is lacking in attention, ABii knows to call the student by name. If the inattentiveness is chronic, then she may also lead the student through a brain break — stretching, breathing or, for smaller children, “wiggling it out.”

Realizing a Critical Design Philosophy With Solid Edge

With her fun, bubbly personality, ABii is currently making waves in classrooms around the world, building both core skills mastery and confidence. To continue designing and developing robots that physically embody complex software and carry out increasingly sophisticated ML tasks, Boccanfuso knew she had to switch to the right CAD software — one that supports complex physical design. These tools would be key to her philosophy as the Van Robotics team moved forward with MARii — and beyond.

That’s why Van Robotics chose to shift to using Solid Edge CAD software for its robotic designs. Offering a suite of sophisticated, tightly integrated tools, Solid Edge encompasses mechanical and electrical design, simulation and data management, to name a few. An excellent choice for Boccanfuso and her team, this software enables design engineers to easily address design challenges that are unique to robotics, all while lowering costs and saving valuable design and development time in the process.

For example, Boccanfuso had to approach ABii’s electromechanical design in terms of child friendliness, and the robot had to pass a long list of child safety requirements for ASTM International certification. “ABii couldn’t have any gaps between her parts, and she had to pass six-foot drop tests twice,” Boccanfuso explains. “And in terms of ABii’s physical design, we had to make sure she could withstand being manipulated by students safely and still have robustness over time.” Addressing this issue, Solid Edge enables users to link and track key design requirements during the design and manufacturing processes. It also makes these requirements easily accessible to all stakeholders, ensuring the final product meets customer expectations and complies with important industry regulations.

Another design challenge for Vans Robotics involved maintaining ABii’s range of motion when modifying the body or head. “As soon as you begin to redesign the body, you can infringe on the robot’s range of motion, especially in the arms,” Boccanfuso says. “Any little tweak can create an interference, but with Solid Edge, we can now check everything in real time, which saves material and production costs down the line.”

Similarly, designing robots with large heads — as is the case with the child-friendly ABii — can create torque issues at the neck. With Solid Edge, engineers can easily iterate around these and other design challenges. For example, it lets users quickly and intuitively create and manage large assemblies, and it provides exact representations of all tubes, pipes, wires, sheet metal and other components. The software aggregates everything in a digital mockup for more accurate design and analysis, enabling users to:

• Detect and fix clash and interference issues
• Route wires and wire harnesses around 3D models
• Integrate electrical components into mechanical designs
• Perform motion, stress, vibration, thermal and buckling simulations
• Generate true-scale digital prototypes with augmented reality capabilities
• Create finite element meshes and define boundary conditions with finite element analysis (FEA) tools

Looking Ahead to the Future

A testament to Solid Edge’s user-friendly nature, Van Robotics was able to create CAD models of its new MARii robot in just a few weeks compared to several months. “Solid Edge is extremely intuitive,” Boccanfuso says. “We thought it would take us all summer to get our designers up to speed on using the software. But not only are they using it, they’ve already created models — all in the span of a few weeks. Compare that to our early working designs for ABii, which took us six to eight months to create.”

The design team’s next step as it develops and fine-tunes MARii will be to 3D print the first models later this year — a process that Boccanfuso is confident will be quick and painless thanks to Solid Edge. The software’s powerful design tools, along with its generative design and topology optimization capabilities, lend themselves well to the creation of light, complex and highly customized shapes for 3D printing. Boccanfuso also believes its iterative design, kinematic analysis and augmented reality capabilities will come in handy as Van Robotics continues to design, refine and develop new robots.

“We’re mostly a software company, but we produce physical robots that use AI to be as adaptive as possible for education,” she says. “Solid Edge will be critical for us as we push to the future.”

To learn more about Solid Edge, visit: https://www.siemens.com/robotics-design.

Sponsored By Solid Edge from Siemens

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