Radarmeter-3D

This project is run by the European Union and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Industrial robots are suitable for many high precision applications such as machining processes only to a limited extent due to inaccurate positioning. The aim of the Radarmeter-3D project is the development of an intelligent navigation sensor system for industrial robots, which is suitable for the adaptive correction of robot tracks. This sensor system is supposed be based on at least three radar sensors, which use a priori information about fixed targets distributed in space to make micrometer-accurate distance measurements and calculate them by means of multilateration to an exact 3D position value, which is then used for precise (better than 100 μm is striven for) readjustment of the robot position. The advantage of using innovative radar technology is the unprecedented combination of camera and laser-based systems with sufficiently high accuracy and low costs. The Ruhr-University Bochum holds by far the world record for extremely precise and absolute radar range measurements with its internationally award-winning radar sensors. This new technology is now to be expanded from 1D range measurements to 3D measurements using multiple sensors in combination with intelligent sensor data fusion, and supposed to provide a long-awaited and cost-effective solution to the fundamental problem of precise positioning in robotics for many precision applications (milling, grinding, assembly). This makes it possible to use robots more efficiently in a wide variety of applications, since resources are conserved because of the many intermittent steps involved in the manual correction of the robot paths and the robots can be used much more flexibly. In addition to navigation, such a sensor can also be used to image and analyze the surroundings of the robot, which offers completely new possibilities, especially in adaptive or cooperating robot scenarios.

IBG Robotronic GmbH will handle the specific work within the developed systems related to users. This concerns the specific requirements as well as the adaptation in the demonstrator systems. It also concerns in part the extensions of the CAD systems, the algorithms within the programming, as well as the adaptation and robot integration in the demonstration systems including the application integration and evaluation.

Radarmeter-3D is a joint project of IGA GmbH, Krohne Innovation GmbH, and the chairs for electronic circuit technology, for embedded systems of information technology, and for integrated systems of the Ruhr-University Bochum, as well as IBG Robotronic GmbH.