The Robot Learning Lab at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology will run 24/7. “This presents enormous potential for crowd experiments,” confidently states Prof. Torsten Kröger , Head of the Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics (IAR) at KIT. The learning lab is currently being set up under his leadership. Cooperation partners of the experiment platform include online academy Udacity and robot manufacturer KUKA . Lightweight robots are already available for testing, and the number is set to increase by the end of the year. They can also be controlled online. In a live stream, students can follow how the industrial robots respond to instructions. “The lightweight robots have sensors in their joints that can detect external forces and thus collisions. That makes them ideal for sensitive assembly applications without a safety fence, even in the tightest of spaces and with people around,” says Rainer Bischoff, Head of KUKA Corporate Research .

Operators expect up to 7,500 future software developers and robotics experts to test their technical solutions and programs in the learning lab each year. The advantage for the managers of the robot lab: It supplies an abundance of data that the KIT researchers can use for their own research projects. With connyun , KUKA has local representation right in Karlsruhe; the startup subsidiary provides an Industry 4.0 cloud platform that connects the machines, components and system – and gathers data for further analysis.