The paper describes the recent design and development efforts in DLR Robotics Lab towards the second generation of light-weight robots. The design of the light weight mechanics, integrated sensors and electronics is outlined. The fully sensory joint, with motor and link position sensors as well as joint torque sensors enables the implementation of effective vibration damping and advanced control strategies for compliant manipulation. The mechatronic approach incorporates a tight collaboration between mechanics, electronics and controller design. The authors hope that important steps towards a new generation of service and personal robots have been achieved.

We present a system for catching a flying ball with a robot arm using off-the-shelf components (PC based system) for visual tracking. The ball is observed by a large baseline stereo camera, comparing each image to a slowly adapting reference image. We track and predict the target position using an extended Kalman filter, also taking into account the air drag. The calibration is achieved by simply performing a few throws and observing their trajectories, as well as moving the robot to some predefined positions.

Describes design and development efforts in DLR's robotics lab towards a new generation of ultra-light weight robots with articulated hands. The design of fully sensorized joints with complete state feedback and the underlying mechanisms are outlined. The second light-weight arm generation is available now, as well as the second generation of a worldwide most highly integrated 4 finger-hand is available now. Thus we hope that important steps towards a new generation of service and personal robots have been achieved.

The introduction of the multiplexer-based Actel FPGA series ACT resulted in an increased interest in multiplexer circuits. This paper introduces a level-by-level top-down minimization algorithm for them. The concept of a local transform is applied for the generalization of the ratio parameter method for M(1) multiplexer synthesis having one data select input and a spectral method for M(2) multiplexer synthesis to determine redundant multiplexer inputs for M(k) multiplexer circuits. The algorithm developed for multilevel synthesis of M(k) multiplexer circuits for incompletely specified multioutput Boolean functions takes advantage of the combination of spectral and Boolean methods. The obtained multiplexer circuit can be directly realized with FPGA's like the Actel ACT series or the CLi 6000 series from Concurrent Logic. A simple heuristic is applied to map an M(1) multiplexer circuit to the Actel ACT1 family.>

A quasi-minimal algorithm for canonical restricted mixed polarity (CRMP) AND/XOR forms is presented. These forms, which include the consistent and inconsistent generalized Reed-Muller (GRM) forms, are both very easily testable and, on average, have smaller numbers of terms than sum-of-product (SOP) expressions. The set of test vectors for detecting stuck-at and bridging faults of a function realized in CRMP forms, like that of consistent (GRM) forms, is independent of the function. This test can be of order (n+4)r, where n is the number of variables in the function and r is the number of component consistent GRMs in the CRMP. The experimental results confirm the compactness of CRMPs as compared to SOP expressions.>

A theory has been developed to calculate the Rademacher-Walsh transform from a cube array specification of incompletely specified Boolean functions. The importance of representing Boolean functions as arrays of disjoint ON- and DC-cubes has been pointed out, and an efficient new algorithm to generate disjoint cubes from nondisjoint ones has been designed. The transform algorithm makes use of the properties of an array of disjoint cubes and allows the determination of the spectral coefficients in an independent way. The programs for both algorithms use advantages of C language to speed up the execution. The comparison of different versions of the algorithm has been carried out. The algorithm and its implementation provide the fastest and most comprehensive program (having many options) known to the authors for the calculation of the Rademacher-Walsh transform. It successfully overcomes all drawbacks in the calculation of the transform from the design automation system based on spectral method-the SPECSYS system from Drexel University, which uses fast Walsh transform.>