Projects

RAFCON is used by a variety of institutes which are working on collaborative projects. Thanks to a growing community and third-party developers the showcase of projects using RAFCON is growing.

Factory of the Future
Factory of the Future is a cross-institutional project of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) aiming at the digital transformation of robot-aided manufacturing processes in Industry 4.0. The DLR initiative supports a comprehensive strategy by examining next-generation connected technologies, artificial intelligence and collaborative robot driven approaches – from early stage ideas through to already matured concepts.
Date: 2018 - present
IAC 2018
At the IAC 2018 booth, RAFCON was executed on multiple robots of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics. Next to two Lightweight rover units (LRUs), also our in-house developed Ardea Hexacopter, was controlled by RAFCON. On the Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV), the task execution framework was used for system configuration, waypoint navigation and high-level mission control.
Date: October 2018
Automatica 2018
During Automatica 2018 our Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulator (AIMM) delivered workpieces to different workstations on our 'Factory of the Future' booth.
Date: June 2018
ROBEX
A moon analogue demonstration mission was conducted with the Lightweight Rover Unit (LRU) in the context of the Robotic Exploration of Extreme Environments (ROBEX) project. The goal of the mission was to perform seismic measurements with the deployed network in order to infer the geological composition and detailed information about the crust layers of the volcanic target region.
Date: Nov 2012 - Nov 2017
MIRO
RAFCON was used for implementing an automated wound debridement workflow on the MiroSurge system. The DLR MiroSurge is a molular system for minimally invasive robotic telesurgery. More information about the wound debridement workflow can be found here: https://www.dlr.de/rm/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3795/16616_read-40575/
Date: Jan 2017 - Nov 2017
SMErobotics
The SMErobotics project aims at significantly simplifying the deployment of robotic applications for production in the context of small and medium size manufacturing. Our mission is to enable industrial end users such as SMEs to benefit from the advantages of automation, e.g. high efficiency, constant high quality and streamlined processes.
Date: 2012 - present
RACELab
With their RACELab project, Christoph Borst and his team at the German Aerospace Center are endeavouring to simplify the industrial use of robots and to achieve greater automation. The project is aimed in particular at industries that are working with the latest robot generation characterised by a lightweight design, good interactional skills and high sensitivity.
Date: 2015 - 2017
Flying Robots
The key research area Flying Robots covers several domains of the DLR Robotics and Mechatronics Center – Aeronautics, Space, Robotics, and Optical Information Systems – in order to exploit synergies in the development of robotics technologies for autonomous flying platforms. The spectrum of our work ranges from low-level control to mission planning and execution.
Date: 2015 - 2017
SpacebotCamp
The Robotics and Mechatronics Center (RMC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) participated as team RMexplores! in the SpaceBot Camp presentation in November 2015 with great success. The SpaceBot Camp, organized by the DLR Space Administration, set out as a national robotics challenge inspired by the DARPA robotics challenges in the US.
Date: Sept 2015
Saphari
Recent progress in physical Human‐Robot Interaction (pHRI) research showed in principle that human and robots can actively and safely share a common workspace. The fundamental breakthrough that enabled these results was the human-centered design of robot mechanics and control. This made it possible to limit potential injuries due to unintentional contacts.
Date: Nov 2011 - Oct 2015

German Aerospace Center
Institute of Robotics
and Mechatronics

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