CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 1 - SOME CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS OF ADVANCED ROBOTICS IN CHINA Xianzhong DAI Robotics Expert Group of National High-Tech R&D Programme, China Frascati, Italy/Nov. 8, 2002 1. Preface As a part of the National High-Tech R&D Programme of China, the Subject Topic of Robot Technology mainly covers the key techniques of robotics and launched in the first year of the National Tenth Five-year Plan, or 2001. The Subject Topic during the Tenth Five-Year Plan focus on the R&D key technologies and prototypes of advanced robot ics such as humanoid robots and bionics robots, mobile robots, medical robots, pipe robots, network-based robots, micro- manipulation system s, service robots, robots technologies in agriculture and forest, and so on. And some innovation achievements of which have been obtained in the passed years. In this report, some current R&D of advanced robotics in China will be introduced briefly with the following sequence,  Wall-climbing robots;  Humanoid robots;  Medical robots;  Micro-manipulation systems;  Mobile robots;  Underwater robots. 2. Wall-climbing robots The wall-climbing robotics study in China has got developed very rapidly, although it started relatively late compared with other advanced countries. With the support of the National High-Tech R&D Programme, the Robotics Research Institute of Harbin Univ. of Tech., Shanghai University, Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics and so on, began to do such research one after other. Some period results have been achieved, for example, the Robotics Research Institute of HIT has successfully developed two series and five types of wall-climbing robots, which are based on negative press absorption and magnetic absorption, respectively. At present, the main use of wall-climbing robotics techniques is the construction cleaning. In this kind of practical use, the wall-cleaning robots made by the Robotics Research Institute of HIT and the Institute of Robotics Research and Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics representatively are being put in market by some cleaning companies. Fig 2-1 shows the wall-climbing robot which made by the HIT Robotics Research Institute .The robot consist of a main frame, cleaning mechanism, remote controller, safety and protection device and other mechanical parts. It can be used to clean ceramic tile, marble or glass wall surface etc. With the adoption of the negative pressure absorption technique, the robot can be tightly absorbed to the wall. The robot is droved by two wheels and can be moved on the vertical surface. With a built-in remote controller it is easy to be operated by a operator on the ground. On the base of formerly research result, the HIT Robotics Research Institute succeed in making a new washing robot for cleaning glass wall, show in Fig 2-2, the robot adopted an electrical revolving brush in the clean mechanism, which can collect and reuse the waste water. CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 2 - The institute of Robotics Research, Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics has also done a project in the technology application of the wall- climbing robot. The institute developed several types of wall cleaning robotics systems. Fig 2-3 shows the glass ceiling robot developed for the Beijing railway west- station, which is composed by two parts—the main body and the ground support equipments. The main body can complete cleaning action as climbing task on the glass wall, and it can also collect the wasted water. Fig 2-4 shows the newly developed window-cleaning robot, it is a kind of fan sucking robot which has no suction disk, spray spout and tracks, and undertake continuous cleaning work. The robot can be controlled by the controlling box and the cable walking system stands on the top of the buildings. Nowadays in China, the application fields of wall-climbing robot is relative narrow, however, we believe that with the developments of the robotics technique, the wall-climbing robot can be used in more and more fields. 3. Humanoid robots The first humanoid robot is build by National University of Defense Fig.2-2 Photo of the new type robot Fig.2-1 CLR-2 cleaning robot Fig.2-3 Robot for cleaning station windows Fig.2-4 3W window cleaning robot CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 3 - Technology in 1999. This humanoid has total 18 DOF (Fig.3-1). Each leg of it has 6 DOF, and each arm has 3 DOF. The height of the humanoid robot is about 1.2m, and the weight of humanoid main body including the mechanism, actuators and reduction is about 40kg. The computer system and the power supply are separated from the main body. In 2001, a new humanoid project supported by the National High-Tech Research and Development Programme was launched. Figure 3-2 shows the humanoid robot BHR-01, which is developed at Beijing Institute of Technology. BHR-01 Humanoid robot consists of a head, two arms and two legs, and has total 31 DOF. The head of it has 3 DOF, each leg consists of a thigh, shank and foot and has total 6 DOF, and each arm consists of an upper arm, forearm and hand, and has total 8 DOF. All joints are driven by DC motors with a harmonic-driven reduction gear actuates respectively. The computer system and power supply are integrated in humanoid body. The height of it is 1.6m and the weight is about 80.0kg. Fig 3-1 Humanoid by University of Defense Fig 3-2 Humanoid by Beijing Institute Technology in 1999 of Technology in 2002 4. Robot-assisted medical mechatronics Similarly in the developed countries, the requirement in china for medical robots has been increasing year by year, as there would be so many reasons for this kind of requirements, such as:  Since there is a problem of population, Chinese government has paied much attention on the prophylaxis diagnosis of people’s disease;  China has about 80 billion RMB market with 10% increasing rate per year and almost every hospital in large cities want to equip some high-tech instruments e.g., CT, MRI, Image-guided navigation and even medical robots. Meanwhile, more and more attentions have been paid on R&D of medical robots by most Chinese universities and academic institutions. For example, the neurosurgery application research is in Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tsinghua Univ. and Navy Hospital of Beijing, the orthopedic application research is in Shenyang Institute of Automation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and so on. Among them, frameless stereotactic neurosurgery system has got great successful. CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 4 - The robot-assisted frameless stereotactic neurosurgery system (Fig.4-1) is developed by Beijing Univ. of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has been used for practical neurosurgery more than 50 cases in Navy Hospital of Beijing. As for the conventional neurosurgery it needs opening the skull of the patient and so it needs long time for convalescence, and also it depends on the surgeon’s experience to locate the pathological tissues, which are normally not really clear. Discarding the cumbersome frame, the robot-assisted neurosurgery system uses the markers for registration. So it reduces the operation procedure and increases operation efficiency and safety, and shortens recovery time for patient. Fig. 4-1 The robot-assisted frameless stereotactic neurosurgery syste 5. Micro-manipulating robots Some micromanipulating robots used for bioengineering and micro-assembly have been developed in China, three examples and their recent developing. 5.1 Micromanipulating robot facing bioengineering developed in Nankai University A new type of biologic-medical experimental robot has been developed by Nankai University, Tianjing. The micro-operation robot system consists of system management module, micro-vision & image processing module, multi-axes motion programmable module, and high precision motion control module. The operator can control the motion of micromanipulator & micro-holder by computer. By means of the micro-vision & image processing, the actions of micro-tools on biological bodies can be performed with high precision automatically. The typical operation process can be memorized and repeated automatically. There is a large operating space enough to exchange the micro-tools and to search the operating objects conveniently. The micro- tools can be searched and shown on CRT automatically, and the experiment process displayed on CRT timely can be memorized. The system can be applied to some micromanipulations of biological bodies such as trans-gene through micro-injection to cells, micro-cutting experiments of the chromosome, and so on (As shown in fig.5-1 and fig.5-2). CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 5 - 5.2 Micromanipulating robot system facing microassembly developed in Harbin institute of technology The tele-micromanipulating robot system based on microassembly has been successfully developed in Harbin institute of technology. The robot is made up of 3 DOF master, a 3 DOF micromanipulor, a 6 DOF macro-positioning system, a micro- gripper, a micro-vision system and a force perception system. It can perform visual monitoring, visual feedback control, micro force perception and dual-arm macro/micro tele-manipulation. Meanwhile, macro/micro force controller based on impedance control is developed successfully. The peg-in-hole tasks are finished by autonomic micro-assembly and tele-assembly respectively. In the tele-assembly experiments, position trace and force trace are realized and the operator gained durative and stable assembly force perception. The robot system will be applied to micro-assembly of micro parts and MEMS parts (As shown in fig.5-3 and fig. 5-4). 5.3 Total optical micromanipulating system developed in University of Science & Technology of China In this system (as shown in fig.5-5) developed by University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, the microgrip of cell and other particulates can be realized by laser beams. Therefore non-contacting operation occurs in the whole course of micromanipulation. The optical micromanipulator— optical tweezers and optical micromachining tool— optical knife are integrated successfully in the system. As a result, some micromanipulating and micromachining tasks are performed. At the same time, Fig.5-5 Total optical micromanipulating system 200 µ m Fig.5- 4 Peg-in-hole is performed Fig.5- 3 Micromanipulating robot system based on microassembly Fig.5-1 Micromanipulating robot syatem b ased on biolo g ical & medical en g ineerin g Fig.5-2 Micro-injection to oocyte of small mouse CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 6 - micromanipulations or micro-machining are finished by coming into some particulates’ bodies. But no spoiling occurs on the surface of these particulates. The system is specially fit to manipulate and machine particulates (their size is sub-micro meter to several decade micro meter) including non-biological bodies and live biological bodies. Non-touching manipulating and controlling a big bio-molecules can be performed by the system too. 6. Mobile robots In recent years, more and more attentions have been paid on R&D of mobile robots, for purpose of services and entertainments, both in Chinese universities and academic institutions, e.g. the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Tsinghua University, Southeast University and many others. Most recently, a new type of mobile robot named as CASIA-I(Fig.6-1) was developed in the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Using two DSPs, both TI’s TMS320LF240X and TMS320LF 54XX series on board, which greatly enhance the signal processing capabilities for large number of sensors, it is characterized by with more useful functions and higher intelligence for convenient use in offices, families, hospitals, libraries and exhibitions. The outstanding features of mobile robot CASIA-I lie in its attractive hearing, speaking and conversing abilities. It can hear and understand the operator’s oral Chinese commands from a wireless microphone, and then it will respond the Chinese-based commands with both Chinese-based speech system and locomotion system. For example, after hearing the Chinese command “Turn to the left”, it will response with Chinese words “No problem” and turns to the left in the mean time. 7. Underwater Robots After the research of 1000m and 6000m underwater robots, Shenyang Institute of Automation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences are trying their best to carried out some underwater engineering services. Besides researching and developing floating motion type underwater robots, SIA now is developing a new type of underwater robot, which can walk and manipulate underwater. Fig.7-1 is an developing underwater manipulating robot. It will be used to lay and maintain cables under the sea. Fig. 6-1. CASIA-I CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 7 - Fig. 7-1 Underwater cable-burying robot . CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 1 - SOME CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS OF ADVANCED ROBOTICS IN CHINA Xianzhong. & medical en g ineerin g Fig.5-2 Micro-injection to oocyte of small mouse CURRENT R&D OF ADVANCED ROBOTS IN CHINA REPORT TO JCF’2002 OF IARP - 6 - micromanipulations