Institute Director Prof. Dr. Alin Albu-Schäffer has won prestigious scientific project funding from the European Commission for his SwingBots project. With the Proof-of-Concept ERC grant, he will develop a particularly energy-efficient industrial robot for the SwingBots project. A significant proportion of the machine's movements are not achieved by electric motors, but by a finely balanced interplay of elastic elements and the rigid components of the robot as moving masses. The theoretical foundations of this approach were developed in the ERC-funded walking robotics project M-Runners (Modal Nonlinear Resonance for Efficient and Versatile Legged Locomotion).
With the proof-of-concept grant, the team wants to identify particularly suitable applications, develop a prototype and examine the prospects of a market launch. In addition to greater energy efficiency, robots that utilise so-called non-linear vibrations should also become quieter, more robust and more cost-effective.
