Iowa State University Computer Science Professor Yan-Bin Jia and PhD student Haniyeh Fekrmandi have been hard at work this summer setting up the Department’s newest research tool – a KUKA LBR Med 7.
The robotic arm, which came from Manhattan in New York City, is equipped with advanced technology, including a seven-kilogram payload, torque control, and seven degrees of freedom (DoFs) or seven different axes in which the robot can independently move or rotate with extreme precision.
This precision makes the robot particularly well suited for applications such as orthopedic surgery. With seven DoF, the KUKA LBR Med can perform highly sophisticated movements to reach around obstacles, pivot quickly, and make efficient use of tight spaces through dexterous manipulation.
Gifted to the ISU Department of Computer Science from Aescape Recovery, Inc. and valued at $50,000-$80,000, the robotic arm will be instrumental to Dr. Jia’s research and will be used by graduate research students working under his professorship. The students will be able to use programming, mathematics, and problem solving to teach robots how to perform skillful actions with high degrees of precision and gain hands-on experience with advanced robotic systems.
The KUKA LBR Med replaces the ISU Robotics Lab’s previous industrial robot – an Adept Cobra 600 Arm that came to the University back in 1999 when Dr. Jia was new to faculty. “Our previous robotic arm had no torque control and was not feedback driven, therefore not good for contact-based tasks.” The new KUKA arm, however, is designed to follow trajectories under force and position controls – a capability necessary for use in medicine.
For graduate research students in ISU Computer Science, the KUKA LBR Med 7 provides an opportunity to work directly with sophisticated technology and explore how their skills can be applied to complex, real-world challenges. By programming and experimenting with the robotic arm, students can develop hands-on experience in robotics, computer vision, and other emerging fields of technology. Having access to technology like the KUKA LBR Med 7 is one example of the cutting-edge research opportunities available to students who join Iowa State’s Computer Science program.