Low-Cost robot design Outcome of the Seminar Introduction to Scientific Working By Thorsten Linder 15. April 2008

Overview of the presentation The presentation matches: What is the meaning of low-cost robot design? Why isn't it solved jet? Approaches to get low-cost The presentation don’t matches: a philosopher's stone of low-cost a design discussion

What is the meaning of low-cost robot design low-cost is not exclusive low prices rising the efficiency/price ratio is getting low-cost interdisciplinary theme (e.g.: l ogics, technologies, …) designs to build beneficial, effective and optimist products

Example from real life 1968: The NASA needed a pen which is usable in zero gravity They used the “ Fisher Space Pen” The UDSSR used a pencil

What is the problem of low-cost robot design many “blind alleys” don’t fit our definition don’t reduces the overall costs don’t solve the tasks … old topic, but not well explored in robotic engineers tries always to reduce costs and synchronous rising the functionality but there are no overall standard procedures Acutely missing: a “golden rule” to create a “low-cost robot” or “low-cost design”

Approaches to get a low-cost design Reducing the price Lighter or cheaper materials Optimized development process Reduces the need of special components

Example for optimizations

Reducing the price Most expensive parts: Sensors Motors Energy supply Reduce there cost reduce automatically the system cost Bad choices have direct impact on the efficiency Therefore, the choice is nontrivial Approches for sensors replacing cost full sensor with cheap ones using model-based approximation, estimation and fusion of multiple sensors/sensor-types E.g. Kalman filtering or Fussy-logic

Lighter or cheaper materials Weight of a robot ↔ actuator-force Force relates to the type of actuators and there energy supply / efficiency Reduce the weight = “smaller” motors “lighter” energy supply These are often cheaper or they reduces the operating costs E.g.: Using carbon or aluminum instead of steal Using LiPo-accumulators instead of plumb cells

Optimized development process Developing a robot needs time, resources and knowledge Interact with customers Analyze the system environment Design the hardware Build the machine Debug and maintain the system Reduce the need of these resources → reduce the costs Some well-known techniques Extreme Programming (XP) Rapid development tools Simulation software Construction kits These techniques allow reducing the development-time and guides to some prototypes / product by time

Reduces the need of special components Special components are no large-scale products Often high prices Complex handling Shrinking the usage of these components guides to a low-cost design Using well known or large-scale products shrinks costs The impact of the quality/efficiency will be reduce over the time (Moor’s Law) Mass production makes it easy to get components E.g. CCD-cameras or Compensator-microphone Nowadays it is some thing like a “hip” to use OEM- ware These practices reduce automatically the costs

Conclusion Not finally solved jet wide open space for more research Not many robotic “low-cost design” papers All practices have dis-/advantages The subset must not be mutually exclusive, e.g. reducing the weight can rise the development time Using standard components can shrink the need of develop recourses Making something “low-cost” needs a deep analysis of the system needs isolate “hotspots” (of price or inefficient) adjust these hotspots to the ratio of efficiency and price

The End Thank you for attention. Questions? Comments?