SFB 360 – TR – 96 – 4 The Neuroinformatics Robot Laboratory

We describe the developed hardware concepts and set-up of the Neuroinformatics robot laboratory. It provides part of the infrastructure for the SFB-360 project D4 “Multisensor Based Exploration and Manipulation” (Additional facilities for this project are contributed by the working group of Prof. Alois Knoll and will be described elsewhere). Central part of the described hardware infrastructure is a classical 6 degreesof-freedom (DOF) robot manipulator and a multi-fingered hydraulic TUM robot hand. The robot' s proprioceptive sensors and their limitations are described. Several additional sensory systems became available, among them are a 6 D forcetorque wrist sensor, the developed prototype of a new tactile sensor sub-system, video imaging systems, and active camera systems. The current communication infrastructure is presented with regards to the physical transport layer, providing the base for various kinds of control and communication processes (asymmetric multiprocessing). The developed high-level software integration layer for the special needs of our robotics laboratory is reported in SFB360-TR-96-3 “SORMA” (Walter and Ritter 1996).