imagine you are asked to build a complex
machine that is for example producing
smart phones several tasks have to be
performed such it’s tubing parts
together screwing parts packaging for
example or checking checking
functionality this is absolutely not an
easy task but regarding availability of
thousands of components and tools and
more than 500 years experience in
mechanical engineering
it becomes feasible and if you look at
these slides most of those components
are made from steel or aluminium with
high rigidity high precision modular
design here a vehicle organization and
everything is centrally controlled by a
PLC this is actually how it works how we
deal with complexity with a fairly
standardized toolset a lot of expert
knowledge and very well-trained people
but if you look into nature everything
is pretty different all the
characteristics that I just have
described do not really match to the
biological models that you can find and
searching for locomotion for creeping or
handling materials such as insects for
example most commonly the key lies not
in precision or stiffness or perfection
it lies in adaptability and if you look
at this chameleon it passively adapts to
its surrounding it can change the color
you can roll the eyes and everyone knows
this colorful defect but if you would
have a closer look to the tip of the
tongue as Norwegian students did
together with us in the workshop you can
find another fascinating principle the
tongue wraps itself over the insect
grabs it quickly and safely and we were
able to copy this principle and found a
technical solution and with that we are
able to cross all
of geometries several items at the same
time and it’s also very easy to grasp
parts just out of a box which is
actually a very complex task requiring a
lot of sensor data if you want to
achieve this with a standard gripper and
due to its softness it can also be used
in service robotics as there is no
danger of trapping the fingers with this
so-called flex shaped River another
fascinating example for soft and
adaptive gripping was found by life
keynesian is called the finn rey effect
we can find this in tail fins of many
fishes and it allows the fish to
increase efficiency exerting pressure on
one flank of the structure leads to a
bending movement in the opposite
direction and this actually can be used
for adaptive gripping of irregular
shaped goods such as potatoes Forex for
example and if we look at the octopus
it’s very easy to realize at least for
me how much potential lies in soft
structures and if he wants would succeed
to control these movements perfectly I’m
sure robots will look different in the
future
there are so many advantages compared to
Richard Steele robots they can be
lightweight flexible and above all safe
to interact with humans and on the way
to these completely flexible and soft
structures made from textiles and
elastomers we see the possibility of
combining the old world with this new
approach and the bondic robot for
example is again made from aluminium
with high precision perfectly
manufactured joints they are similarly
arranged to human arm but a big
difference between conventional robot is
actually that this one is completely
automatically driven we use a vast
terminal that allows air flavor flow and
pressure very precisely to be controlled
and the joints itself are then very
simple it’s just one rotary vane and two
compressed air chambers so we were able
to adjust the pressure and move
precisely but we are also able to adjust
the stiffness according to the
application and this is very similar to
our a bonus and antagonistic system
similar to miss to myself it can move
very soft lifting something easily so
you can easily interact or doing
something with a strong movement there
you better avoid collision but above all
it’s very easy to teach and use software
actually to make the complex part very
easy understandable for the user so over
the last 12 years we have developed more
than 45 projects within the so-called
Bionic Learning Network at Festo
together with our cooperation partners
and all of them are inspired by nature
we have experienced our own kind of
evolution with wing-flapping mechanisms
with our flying objects and also
lightweight designs
we have learnt a lot for our core
business in the field of industrial
automation and you see a lot of gripping
and handling solutions in this
Festo DNA some of them I have shown
already and below you see different
future concepts where we use and
demonstrate new materials technologies
algorithms such as swarm behavior and so
on we hope to use these technologies and
materials in the future we are always on
the search for fascinating principles
for intelligent solutions that enable us
to make complex things easier more
cost-effective and more intuitive to use
and this cradle of making things simple
is also part of our methodology in the
video you see the very first prototype
of this flagship cripple was just made
alpha out of a waste water pipe and an
old toy but it worked already that well
that everyone was was fascinated at the
very first sight we very often start
with these fairly simple prototypes that
allow us to test the functionality and
to explain your ideas it has to be very
successful we work very hands-on and our
lapis world materials and tiny motors
where we try to investigate potential
and five years in principle and fast
failure fast iteration is our way of
dealing with complexity so it’s always
challenge to abstract coming from a
great vision but use it and grow it in
an iterative process with an
interdisciplinary team and this is also
what we did over the last year with the
development of our Bionic flying fox the
first prototypes again were built very
pretty quickly they looked very
promising but as always the devil is in
the detail
the plan was to have foldable wings an
elastic skin that covers the kinematics
and forms doing we did a lot of research
but we couldn’t find any highly elastic
material that was light enough
and that matched our aerodynamic
properties that were needed so we had to
develop our own material made from a
textile net rather than two files and as
you see the flying fox has no elevator
and no rudder like airplanes have so
it’s only one large fleeing flying wing
and therefore very difficult to control
so several approaches actually we had to
solve this problem meantime we have used
the feed as the rudders and we had to
learn in many painful crashes it was
really difficult to find a solution and
we always had to simplify again the
prototypes trying to get rid of every
gram that was not absolutely needed we
modified the shape of the wings so many
times until we achieved enough stability
and it was very helpful to have
slow-motion videos actually to feed
figure out what would work and now here
on my right side you can see the result
with a total weight of 580 grams and a
wingspan of 228 centimeters Bionic
flying fox who now take off and
[Applause]
thank you so much but let me conclude
this one final comment our coming
complexity is a major challenge today
and simplification is an extremely
difficult task there’s a high risk that
the reduction will not correspondent to
reality but I strongly believe that at
least in the technical world we can take
this risk and searching for really
simple solutions perhaps as we do to be
inspired by nature to simplify the
visionary idea and to develop it further
in iterations step by step until you
reach the goal and then if a complex
problem can be solved by simple means
it’s at least an ingenious experience
thanks a lot [Applause]
machine that is for example producing
smart phones several tasks have to be
performed such it’s tubing parts
together screwing parts packaging for
example or checking checking
functionality this is absolutely not an
easy task but regarding availability of
thousands of components and tools and
more than 500 years experience in
mechanical engineering
it becomes feasible and if you look at
these slides most of those components
are made from steel or aluminium with
high rigidity high precision modular
design here a vehicle organization and
everything is centrally controlled by a
PLC this is actually how it works how we
deal with complexity with a fairly
standardized toolset a lot of expert
knowledge and very well-trained people
but if you look into nature everything
is pretty different all the
characteristics that I just have
described do not really match to the
biological models that you can find and
searching for locomotion for creeping or
handling materials such as insects for
example most commonly the key lies not
in precision or stiffness or perfection
it lies in adaptability and if you look
at this chameleon it passively adapts to
its surrounding it can change the color
you can roll the eyes and everyone knows
this colorful defect but if you would
have a closer look to the tip of the
tongue as Norwegian students did
together with us in the workshop you can
find another fascinating principle the
tongue wraps itself over the insect
grabs it quickly and safely and we were
able to copy this principle and found a
technical solution and with that we are
able to cross all
of geometries several items at the same
time and it’s also very easy to grasp
parts just out of a box which is
actually a very complex task requiring a
lot of sensor data if you want to
achieve this with a standard gripper and
due to its softness it can also be used
in service robotics as there is no
danger of trapping the fingers with this
so-called flex shaped River another
fascinating example for soft and
adaptive gripping was found by life
keynesian is called the finn rey effect
we can find this in tail fins of many
fishes and it allows the fish to
increase efficiency exerting pressure on
one flank of the structure leads to a
bending movement in the opposite
direction and this actually can be used
for adaptive gripping of irregular
shaped goods such as potatoes Forex for
example and if we look at the octopus
it’s very easy to realize at least for
me how much potential lies in soft
structures and if he wants would succeed
to control these movements perfectly I’m
sure robots will look different in the
future
there are so many advantages compared to
Richard Steele robots they can be
lightweight flexible and above all safe
to interact with humans and on the way
to these completely flexible and soft
structures made from textiles and
elastomers we see the possibility of
combining the old world with this new
approach and the bondic robot for
example is again made from aluminium
with high precision perfectly
manufactured joints they are similarly
arranged to human arm but a big
difference between conventional robot is
actually that this one is completely
automatically driven we use a vast
terminal that allows air flavor flow and
pressure very precisely to be controlled
and the joints itself are then very
simple it’s just one rotary vane and two
compressed air chambers so we were able
to adjust the pressure and move
precisely but we are also able to adjust
the stiffness according to the
application and this is very similar to
our a bonus and antagonistic system
similar to miss to myself it can move
very soft lifting something easily so
you can easily interact or doing
something with a strong movement there
you better avoid collision but above all
it’s very easy to teach and use software
actually to make the complex part very
easy understandable for the user so over
the last 12 years we have developed more
than 45 projects within the so-called
Bionic Learning Network at Festo
together with our cooperation partners
and all of them are inspired by nature
we have experienced our own kind of
evolution with wing-flapping mechanisms
with our flying objects and also
lightweight designs
we have learnt a lot for our core
business in the field of industrial
automation and you see a lot of gripping
and handling solutions in this
Festo DNA some of them I have shown
already and below you see different
future concepts where we use and
demonstrate new materials technologies
algorithms such as swarm behavior and so
on we hope to use these technologies and
materials in the future we are always on
the search for fascinating principles
for intelligent solutions that enable us
to make complex things easier more
cost-effective and more intuitive to use
and this cradle of making things simple
is also part of our methodology in the
video you see the very first prototype
of this flagship cripple was just made
alpha out of a waste water pipe and an
old toy but it worked already that well
that everyone was was fascinated at the
very first sight we very often start
with these fairly simple prototypes that
allow us to test the functionality and
to explain your ideas it has to be very
successful we work very hands-on and our
lapis world materials and tiny motors
where we try to investigate potential
and five years in principle and fast
failure fast iteration is our way of
dealing with complexity so it’s always
challenge to abstract coming from a
great vision but use it and grow it in
an iterative process with an
interdisciplinary team and this is also
what we did over the last year with the
development of our Bionic flying fox the
first prototypes again were built very
pretty quickly they looked very
promising but as always the devil is in
the detail
the plan was to have foldable wings an
elastic skin that covers the kinematics
and forms doing we did a lot of research
but we couldn’t find any highly elastic
material that was light enough
and that matched our aerodynamic
properties that were needed so we had to
develop our own material made from a
textile net rather than two files and as
you see the flying fox has no elevator
and no rudder like airplanes have so
it’s only one large fleeing flying wing
and therefore very difficult to control
so several approaches actually we had to
solve this problem meantime we have used
the feed as the rudders and we had to
learn in many painful crashes it was
really difficult to find a solution and
we always had to simplify again the
prototypes trying to get rid of every
gram that was not absolutely needed we
modified the shape of the wings so many
times until we achieved enough stability
and it was very helpful to have
slow-motion videos actually to feed
figure out what would work and now here
on my right side you can see the result
with a total weight of 580 grams and a
wingspan of 228 centimeters Bionic
flying fox who now take off and
[Applause]
thank you so much but let me conclude
this one final comment our coming
complexity is a major challenge today
and simplification is an extremely
difficult task there’s a high risk that
the reduction will not correspondent to
reality but I strongly believe that at
least in the technical world we can take
this risk and searching for really
simple solutions perhaps as we do to be
inspired by nature to simplify the
visionary idea and to develop it further
in iterations step by step until you
reach the goal and then if a complex
problem can be solved by simple means
it’s at least an ingenious experience
thanks a lot [Applause]
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