CASE STUDY

INDUSTRIALCOLLABORATIONPROJECT

In 2009, Quanser submitted a proposal to Defence Research and Development (DRDC) Canada’s Centre for Security Science (CSS) to design, develop and demonstrate a Haptics-based Immersive Tele-robotic System (HITS), including an unmanned vehicle and multiple robotic manipulators to assist the Department of National Defence with the remote dismantling of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

To complete this multi-year, multi-million dollar R&D project, Quanser sought a collaborator and original equipment manufacturer whose robotic arm would give them the best real-time performance from a PC-based environment, allowing them to remove the embedded DSP from the arm and control the actuators directly from the PC using their open architecture software.

THE CHALLENGE

1

Quanser’s search for the right robotic arm led them to Kinova. The very first iteration of the Kinova® JACO-series robotic arm met many of the project’s requirements, so Quanser formed a partnership with us, in which we developed a custom version of the JACO arm to suit the company’s needs. Since both teams were actively involved in robotics R&D, we spoke the same language, giving us a strong connection in terms of skill-set and mindset from the start.

The first step in this collaboration was for Quanser’s team to communicate with one of the JACO actuators and, eventually, to scale their entire software interface to all six actuators of the JACO arm. Quanser’s engineers worked with ours to get direct access to Kinova’s API and other tools. As both teams worked back and forth, Quanser was able to successfully develop its software interface to the JACO arm in a relatively short time frame. These customizations also allowed for joint-space control, which is very important in robotics research.

THE APPROACH

2

KEY OBJECTIVES

1 Develop robotic arms for Quanser that could be mounted on vehicles, offering the flexibility to develop advanced multi-body coordinated control strategies that would be adaptable in a wide variety of operational scenarios.

2 Meet Quanser’s specific requirements regarding form factor, footprint, power requirements, weight and overall compatibility, all within a remotely-operated mobile ground platform.

3

The DRDC collaboration proved very successful, and showcased two Canadian companies’ skills and technology in developing a solution with advanced tele-robotic capabilities.

Ultimately, the partnership between Kinova and Quanser led to the latter’s current commercial offering to academia using the latest MICO® 2 manipulators.

THE RESULTS

4

4-DOF 6-DOF

THE RESULTS

Kinova has customized a 4-DOF arm for Quanser’s undergraduate robotics labs, to introduce students to forward and inverse kinematics, Jacobian, motion control and other robotics concepts.

As part of this partnership, we’ve also developed a six-DOF arm with a higher communication rate and open architecture framework, providing researchers with an intuitive environment for designing and implementing control algorithms. Ultimately, the partnership between Kinova and Quanser led to the latter’s current commercial offering to academia using the latest MICO® 2 manipulators.

5

Kinova was willing to make a custom version of the JACO arm for us, and that was the beginning of our partnership... Over the years, we’ve been working with Kinova on other projects, but more as part of our core commercial business. We’ve developed our solutions to support the MICO arms, for example. Kinova was willing to customize their off-the-shelf MICO arms, so that they met requirements of our academic customers.

- Hervé Lacheray, Senior Project Manager, Quanser

CONTACTkblanchet@kinova.caKeith Blanchet, senior director, innovation robotics

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