Core technologies for realizing the twin transition in robotics

Our world is going through two parallel transitions. On one hand, we are going through a digital transition to save costs and improve productivity. And on the other hand, we are going through a sustainability transition, to save our planet.. At the multidisciplinary research center Brubotics of VUB and imec, we are bringing these two together in a robotics context, called The Twin Transition.

Robot applications are rapidly evolving through the Gartner hype cycle. A robot is an integration of the best technologies, where the different robot applications set requirements for these technologies. But those robot technologies from sensing to actuation do not yet provide the required capabilities for several applications. Here, imec aims to play a pivotal role.

On actuation technology we demonstrate how energy efficient actuation by a new generation of gearbox technology can create much lighter and safer collaborative robots and the role of springs in wearable robots as exoskeletons can support workers in.

For most robots, the skin is largely a passive protective layer. On the contrary, in humans, the skin is the largest organ and essential to be able to operate and interact in unknown dynamically changing environments. Robots mostly rely on vision with beyond human capabilities to operate in cluttered environments, however suffering from occlusions hampering their performances for fast but safe motion and manipulation. Therefor we are working on an onboard safety proximity system and magnetic 3D touch sensors. Most touch sensors measure the normal force only and ignore the shear forces, while this is a critical limitation for many applications.