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Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics

Cable Robots in the German Pavilion
at the World Exhibition EXPO 2015 in Milan

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Extract of the EXPO-Show at the German Pavilion in Milan


German Pavilion at the EXPO 2015 in Milan



Extract of the special ITM-Show at the German Pavilion in Milan


Between May and October 2015 visitors from all over the world can visit the German Pavilion at the World Exhibition EXPO 2015 in Milan. Picking up the theme of the EXPO "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life", the German Pavilion shows new and innovative ideas from Germany in regard to feeding and food of the future. Beside many exponats and projects from research and industry the highlight is a great show at the end of the pavilion. According to the motto of the Pavilion "Be Active" the show, consisting of musicians and cable robots, encourages the people to join with. The show addresses a flight over Germany with its typical life from the perspective of two bees. This is realized by two cable-driven parallel robots each consisting of a platform looking like the eye of a bee and eight cables controlled by winches. In addition to following a desired trajectory, the show is accompanied by a video from a projector mounted inside the platform screening pictures on a perspex disc. Furthermore, a beatboxer and a guitarist encourage the audience to join with.

The Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics (ITM) in cooperation with the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units (ISW) developed a software tool in order to compute the trajectories of the cable robots in advance. This preplanning is necessary to guarantee a smooth and safe show running about 40 times a day for half a year over the heads of the audience. On the one hand the motion planning software considers technical limitations like maximum cable forces, on the other hand a visually appealing and smooth show is computed in order to imitate the natural flight of a bee. This includes mainly the planning and computation of trajectories taking several minutes both for position and rotation of the platforms. To reduce complexity in the design process, a show is split into several sequences which are assembled again after planning. Another challenging task is the fact that the cable robots are only tensed from above due to safety and astethic reasons.

On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, Messe Frankfurt is responsible for the organization and operation of the German Pavilion and works closely together with the German Pavilion EXPO 2015 Milan Consortium (ARGE) consisting of the companies Milla & Partner, Schmidhuber and Nüssli. The University of Stuttgart is official research partner represented by the Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics (ITM) and the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units (ISW) which enable, in cooperation with Milla & Partner and more project partners, the planning and realization of the show.

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