Marine robotics

Robot + seawater doesn’t look like a good combination. With proper shielding everything is possible, but why would anyone install a robot on a ship?

When you have to service a wind turbine is it difficult to step on the ladder directly from the vessel. Robot is actively helping to compensate all ship motions on the water to provide safe access to offshore structures. Is a key part of self-stabilizing offshore transfer system for personnel and materials. The robot can compensate for the movement of the ship for waves up to 2.5 meters high.

Robot sensor Interface (RSI) – motion modification in real-time

For me it is a really innovative solution, this is the first time when I see the robot in the marine industry (on sea not in shipyard). How does it work? Under the cover, there is a “classical” industrial robot made by KUKAKUKA is a manufacturer of industrial robots and solutions for factory automation. The KUKA Robotics Corporation has 25 subsidiaries worldwide, mostly sales and service subsidiaries, including in the United States,... More. It uses a Robot Sensor Interface (RSI) to adapt robot movement trajectory regarding signals from an external position sensor.

In KUKA robots RSI is a nearly real-time interface. It can send and receive packets with very low latency – every 12 ms (in standard IPO mode) or 4 ms (IPO fast mode). Robot sensor Interface is very useful is for dynamic path modification (e.g. offsetting) in real-time, e.g. using the data from an external sensor.

Robot sensor Interface is not a KUKA specific solution. Is also available in other robot brands: LLI – Low Level Interface (Staubli), MXT (Mitsubishi) or EGM – Externally Guided Motion (ABBABB (ASEA Brown Boveri) is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, operating mainly in robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment and automation technology areas. It is ranked 341st in... More). These solutions allow you to control a robot from another controller/pc (make own motion planner for example) or make corrections to current motions.

Read more: MOTS presentation