Vibration isolation system to improve force-torque control of KUKA robotic arm
Problem statement
Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research uses a KUKA industrial robotic arm (KR300 R2700-2) for biomechanical testing of biological joints. One side of the biological joint is attached to a pedestal containing a 6-axis load cell. The other side of the biological joint is attached to the end effector of the robot arm. Both the robot arm and pedestal are connected to a rigid testing platform. Although this rigidity helps with kinematic control, it make force-torque control more challenging because vibrations from the robot propagate through the platform and introduce noise in the force-torque control signals. Thus, a vibration isolation system to mitigate the noise introduced by robot vibrations would greatly enhance biomechanical testing. This would also extend to other robot application in which the robot is manipulating an tool under force-torque control (e.g., surface polishing).
Team members
Charlie Anderson – facilitator
Elliot Karger – communicator
Monte Brown – admin
Richard Yao – accountant
Client
Josh Roth
UW – Mechanical Engineering