Our team has been hard at work on developments that we believe will push the boundaries of what is possible within current robotics research trends. This work was initiated in part thanks to various European Collaborative projects we take part in. We have been working on a new robot mobile manipulator with significant advancements in mobile manipulation, and we’re proud to present our latest developments -TIAGo Pro Edition – read on to find out more!

DISCOVER TIAGO PRO EDITION

TIAGo Pro Edition‘s innovations revolve around fully torque-controlled arms and placement that will enhance the robot’s manipulation capabilities, along with state/of the art Human/Robot Interaction abilities.

The robot aims to target the needs of agile manufacturing yet still has human-centric qualities to work with humans side by side. Through our developments, we aim to take a step forward in our efforts to enhance productivity, and open doors to academics in Industry 5.0, and in the future, healthcare.

The starting point: TIAGo mobile manipulator and growing the robot family

The starting point for the new robot, TIAGo Pro Edition, has been TIAGo robot – originally developed by PAL Robotics in 2015 and nowadays one of Europe’s most popular platforms for mobile manipulation research and applications across Europe and beyond. TIAGo Pro Edition will become the newest member of the TIAGo robot family, made up of various customisable robots including robots with one arm, two arms, and/or a touchscreen.

The latest R&D efforts: hardware upgrades including fully torque-controllable arms and a boost in HRI capabilities

TIAGo Pro Edition is still a mobile manipulator with the capabilities of navigation, perception, and manipulation, along with HRI. However, the robot represents significant upgrades to TIAGo to meet research trends and needs in mobile manipulation, with major hardware upgrades including:

  • Fully torque-controllable arms at joint level with breaks at each joint
  • An Ethercat communication bus with high bandwidth
  • A brand new electronics architecture including increased computational power.

In more detail, these updates are:

  1. A new version of the robotic arm, with 7 Degrees of Freedom, now sequential, joint torque sensing through Series Elastic Elements, a 1KHz Ethercat bus to assure high joint torque bandwidth, and a placement to enhance TIAGo’s current workspace
  2. Fully custom electronics, designed at PAL Robotics to maximise the impact of the hardware improvements
  3. Enhanced computational capabilities to handle the Machine-Learning-based algorithms
  4. A boost in the robot’s HRI capacities for a human-centric approach to the deployment of the platform on the shop floor.

Optimal arm mounting on TIAGo Pro Edition

With the new design, along with the arm technology itself, the bi-manual workspace of the robot has been maximised. The reach of the arm does not only depend on the length of the arms, but also on the kinematics and on how the arm is mounted on the robot.

With the new robot, we have explored a new arm placement to have, firstly, a greater common workspace between the arms and also an easy frontal and lateral reach. TIAGo Pro Edition is able to reach objects on the floor and high shelves according to the usual ergonomics requirements for human workers.

The torque-controlled arms also let users have more precise and human-centric manipulation.

More information.

By PAL Robotics