Rapid Prototyping of an Adaptive Light-source for Mobile Manipulators with EasyKit and EasyLab

Martin Wojtczyk , Simon Barner , Michael Geisinger and Alois Knoll

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Solid State Lighting: Applications, SPIE Optics and Photonics, Illumination Engineering,

August 2008 · doi: 10.1117/12.795019

abstract

While still not common in day-to-day business, mobile robot platforms form a growing market in robotics. Mobile platforms equipped with a manipulator for increased flexibility have been used successfully in biotech laboratories for sample management as shown on the well-known ESACT meetings. Navigation and object recognition is carried out by the utilization of a mounted machine vision camera. To cope with the different illumination conditions in a large laboratory, development of an adaptive light source was indispensable. We present our approach of rapid developing a computer controlled, adaptive LED light within one single business day, by utilizing the hardware toolbox EasyKit and our appropriate software counterpart EasyLab.

subject terms: Adaptive Light-source, Service Robotics, Rapid Hardware Prototyping, Zero Code Development, easykit, easylab, robotics, labautomation