building-a-bionic-zoo

1. Building a Bionic Zoo Summary: Automation specialist Festo has built a wide range of bionic-robots mimicking the behaviour, movement and skills of animals in nature in order to inspire better manufacturing solutions. TEXT: The automation specialist Festo has built a wide range of bionic-robots mimicking the behaviour, movement and skills of animals by combining pneumatic robotics with artificial intelligence. Since 2006, Festo has been building these bots as part of its “Bionic Learning Network” as the company believe that mimicking the efficiencies of the natural world will inspire researchers to find more creative and efficient ways to improve manufacturing. Two of the company’s latest creations are the BionicFlyingFox and the BionicWheelBot. The bionic fruit bat (also known as a flying fox) consists of a foam body and wings made out of a knitted elastane fabric. “The model’s flying membrane is wafer-thin and ultralight whilst also robust,” says Festo which was founded in Esslingen, Germany in 1925. “It consists of two airtight films and a knitted elastane fabric, which are welded together at approximately 45,000 points. Due to its elasticity, it stays un- creased, even when the wings are retracted. The fabric’s honeycomb structure prevents small cracks in the flying membrane from getting bigger. This means that the BionicFlyingFox can continue flying even if the fabric sustains minor damage.” The flying fox can move semi-autonomously in a defined space by communicating with a motion-tracking system that constantly records its position. The BionicWheelBot was inspired by the flic-flac spider, which lives in the Sahara and escapes predators with cartwheels and flips. Bionics professor Ingo Rechenberg, who discovered the flic-flac spider, was involved in helping to design Festo’s version. It has eight legs which are controlled by 15 motors within the knee joints and body. When it rolls, it does a somersault with its whole body, tucking in six of the legs and using the remaining two to push off the ground with every rotation. Thanks to an integrated inertial sensor, the robot knows its position and when to push while rolling. Festo have also built an ultralight flying drone inspired by the herring gull. With a wingspan of two meters, the flight model can take off, fly and land using its own wings and just 23 watts of power – half the power used by some laptops. Taking all they have learned from their biomimicry inventions, Festo have moved on to create a ‘bionicsofthand’. The arms is covered in a silicone skin and consists of linked bellow-style air chambers, which are made of a flexible knitted material that work together to mimic the movement of a human hand. Unlike the human hand however, the bionicsofthand has no bones. Instead, bellows are enclosed in the fingers made from a special 3D textile coat knitted from high-strength elastic threads and air is pumped in and out of the chambers via rubber tubes to cause it to bend in a certain direction and allow the finger to open or close. Sensors are situated in the joints and the underside of each one incorporates a tactile sensor which allows the bot to ‘feel’ objects it holds via the pressure exerted by that object. In addition to its dexterity, it is revolutionary in terms of how it operates. Instead of imitating a specific action, the hand has been designed to achieve a goal, employinga trial and error method to achieve it. This means that it undertakes continuous learning based on received feedback and it gradually optimises its actions until the task is finally solved successfully. This enables significant implications

2. for the production process, particularly for products that are highly delicate or sensitive assembly is required. Festo, specialises in advanced automation technology for more than 40 industries. Its experiments with robotic biomimicry have led to several major advances in automating manufacturing. For example, although many elements of food production are already automated, filling products such as antipasti still required manual labour – a time-consuming and cost-intensive activity. However, Festo invested a specially developed systems to automatically fill peppers, tomatoes or chillies using automation components. In addition, Festo is helping manufacturers deliver high quality production of small quantity batches. Traditionally, production requires a minimum batch size to make its manufacture economically viable. However, Festo has developed a highly flexible manufacturing system able to process all six sides of a workpiece in just one work cycle. To do this, Festo developed tool-changing solutions and a special magazine to load and unload each work piece. Such is the success of the company that it achieved EUR 3.1bn of revenue in 2018 and has over 20,000 employees. It plans to add 350 jobs in the fields of engineering, mechatronics, purchasing and material management, as well as production and logistics operations, over the next five years.