At TUM MIRMI’s AI Robotic Security & Efficiency Centre, researchers Kübra Karacan, Robin Kirschner, and Alessandro Melone (rom left to proper) have analyzed the sensitivity of robotic manipulators. | Credit score: TUM
Researchers on the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, or MIRMI, on the Technical College of Munich have created a “Tree of Robots,” a brand new analysis scheme to measure the sensitivity of autonomous robots. Sensitivity is essential for protected and versatile human-robot interplay, and there hasn’t been a normal method to assess it, they stated.
The Technical College of Munich (TUM) researchers stated new scheme will allow the comparability of business robots and, finally, different robotic techniques, resembling cell platforms, humanoids, and robotic fingers.
“Such a normal may pave the best way for a high quality seal for the quickly increasing robotics market,” asserted Prof. Achim Lilienthal, deputy director of MIRMI and professor of clever techniques notion at TUM. “Realizing the efficiency capabilities of a robotic system is a gigantic assist to trade, the place corporations wish to make the very best use of robotic techniques.”
“The TUM MIRMI check methodology has the potential to turn into an industrial testing customary,” he stated. “Realizing the efficiency capabilities of a robotic system is a gigantic assist to trade, the place corporations wish to make the very best use of robotic techniques.”
Categorization results in Tree of Robots
The researchers started by analyzing and categorizing single-armed robots from varied producers which can be utilized in each trade and analysis.
Regardless of typically showing related, these robotic arms possess distinct traits of their sensors, motors, and inside management techniques. This results in substantial variations of their basic capabilities: some excel in energy and precision, whereas others are designed for versatile and delicate interplay with their environment and workpieces.
As an instance these variations and the continued developments in robotics, researchers at TUM MIRMI’s AI Robotic Security & Efficiency Centre created the Tree of Robots. Impressed by Charles Darwin’s Tree of Life, this visualization illustrates the various variations of varied robotic species to their respective habitats.
The researchers recognized 25 particular measurements to explain a robotic’s sensitivity throughout bodily contact. These measurements assist decide if the pressure utilized to a floor aligns with the meant pressure, for instance, or if a robotic may injure a human.
A spider diagram generated from these 25 measurements permits for a fast visible evaluation of a robotic’s sensitivity, even for these with out specialised information.
Primarily based on their efficiency, robotic techniques are categorized as industrial robots, cobots, gentle robots, and “tactile robots.” Surgical robots, for example, are primarily evaluated on their precision. For warehouse or manufacturing facility purposes, the emphasis shifts to energy and resilience—their means to carry out repetitive actions over prolonged durations.
“We mix present movement metrics with our new tactile metrics to supply the first-ever overview of the totality of the fundamental capabilities for bodily interactions of a robotic system,” famous lab director Robin Kirschner.
A taxonomy consisting of the elements based mostly on system structure (gray), embodiment efficiency (inexperienced) and course of (blue). a, The robot-fitness-based classification: (i) the health metrics that outline the inexperienced spider plots, specifically, the robotic health spectrum; (ii) the species of an embodiment outlined by the general health rating plotted over movement and tactility health; (iii) genus teams clustering the robotic species into process-based health classes. b, Hierarchical morphology illustration. c, Necessities for course of automation which can be transferred into the required robotic health metrics by (i) identification of domain-specific processes; (ii) deduction of the required primary operations; (iii) high quality metrics describing the method that outline the required embodiment health metrics. | Credit score: TUM
TUM could possibly be German testing heart for robots
The workforce revealed a analysis paper titled “Categorizing robots by efficiency health into the tree of robots” in Nature in February 2025.
Prof. Lorenzo Masia, govt director of TUM MIRMI, added: “Primarily based on the unique thought, I’m sure that the AI Robotic Security & Efficiency Centre at TUM MIRMI will become an unbiased nationwide testing heart for robotics.”
A five-member board of administrators oversees TUM MIRMI’s analysis and innovation technique, core instructing content material, and the institution of latest focus teams. The board contains:
- Prof. Masia, govt director
- Prof. Lilienthal, deputy director and director of technique and partnerships
- Prof. Angela Schoellig, director of trade and worldwide affairs
- Prof. Eckehard Steinbach, director of startups and infrastructure
