The KUKA-DLR Lightweight Robot arm – a new reference platform for robotics research and manufacturing Rainer Bischoff 1 , Johannes Kurth 1 , Günter Schreiber 1 , Ralf Koeppe 1 , Alin Albu-Schäffer 2 , Alexan- der Beyer 2 , Oliver Eiberger 2 , Sami Haddadin 2 , Andreas Stemmer 2 , Gerhard Grunwald 2 , Gerhard Hirzinger 2 1 KUKA Roboter GmbH, Augsburg, Germany 2 Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Wessling, Germany Summary / Abstract Transforming research results into marketable products requires considerable endurance and a strong sense of entrepre- neurship. The KUKA Lightweight Robot (LWR) is the latest outcome of a bilateral research collaboration between KUKA Roboter, Augsburg, and the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Wessling. The LWR has unique characteristics including a low mass-payload ratio and a programmable, active compli- ance which enables researchers and engineers to develop new industrial and service robotics applications with unprece- dented performance, making it a unique reference platform for robotics research and future manufacturing. The stages of product genesis, the most innovative features and first application examples are presented. 1 Introduction Innovation at KUKA Roboter is seen as a core component of the company’s business strategy. Innovation becomes a reality when research results are transformed into products, so that these products can be bought and people gain em- ployment. KUKA has a track record of successful collabo- ration with academia and has managed very often to turn the outcome of collaborative research projects into suc- cessful products [9]. The latest innovation in this sense is the KUKA-DLR Lightweight Robot (LWR). After many innovative steps, first at DLR, later at DLR and KUKA, both partners man- aged to successfully go the strenuous road from the origi- nal invention, an idea made manifest in 1991, to prototypes produced in a small series starting in December 2008. The main motivating force behind the lightweight robot development is to revolutionize the applicability of robot- ics in our society. Robots should become available not on- ly on the shop floor, but also at our homes, offices, in the public and in space. Looking at the future of automation, robots will not only be stupid machines carrying out dull and dangerous work and being caged behind fences, but work as robot assistants in close proximity of, and in coop- eration with, humans. These robot assistants will require the characteristics presented in Table 1 in comparison to today’s industrial robots. Future robot assistants may be realized by integrating lightweight robot arms because they are in principle less dangerous for tasks which require closer human-robot in- teraction without fences and are much more portable, and thus suitable for mobile robot applications. In the following, we present the LWR product genesis star- ting from the first research demonstrators (Section 2). Key characteristics of the LWR will be explained in Section 3. First applications in research and industry are outlined in Section 4. The summary and strategic conclusions will be presented in Section 5. 2 Stages of research and product de- velopment The development of the lightweight robot has its roots in the 1993 ROTEX space shuttle mission, which demonstrated for the first time a robot arm in space that could work both by tele-operation from the ground and autonomously in space, e.g., to catch small flying objects. “Classical” industrial robot Future production assistant fixed installation flexibly relocatable (manually or on mobile robots) periodic, repeatable tasks; sel- dom changes frequent task changes; tasks seldom repeated programmed online / offline by a robot specialist instructed online by a process expert supported by offline methods infrequent interaction with the worker only during program- ming frequent interaction with the worker, even force / precision assistance worker and robot separated by fences workspace sharing with the worker profitable only with medium to large lot sizes profitable even with small lot sizes Table 1: Comparing classical industrial robots with future production assistants. ISR / ROBOTIK 2010 741