54 Digest | Robotique Occitane ROC-E AIV “We’ve worked with one customer that handled the pyrotechnic deployers for vehicle airbags; one key constraint there was that those devices could fall onto the floor and detonate under the robot as it rolls over. “They’d broken some other robots exactly this way. But they saw ours, inspected the undercarriage and were satisfied by the 5 mm aluminium layer that it wouldn’t break. And there’s plenty of inanimate objects throughout factory, warehouse or hospital floors for instance that could pierce our lower electrical or electronic components if it weren’t for our structural approach.” Power and movement To maximise ROC-E’s functionality, the wheelbase on NOEME integrates two bidirectional, BLDC motors enabling equal forward and reverse traction capacity, two motor controllers, two traction wheels (one for each motor), two reduction gearboxes (one downstream from each motor) and four non-driven balancer wheels. “We specifically avoided spin wheels – those wheels that can azimuth and turn in any direction, whether motored or otherwise – because we had experience with them from the past and had run into a lot of trouble,” Dehlinger notes. “In industrial or logistics applications especially, debris like bits of plastic can be strewn across the ground; if there’s any space for them to get drawn up into the wheel, then they will. That can cause odometry errors by sticking the wheel, and such errors are a major reason why robots can get lost inside company facilities – the odometry is often a key input for positioning.” Hence, the ROC-E (and NOEME) chassis wraps tightly around the fixed, motored wheels to prevent intrusion of foreign objects. To further safeguard the odometry (among other things), a unique, patent-pending balancing system has been engineered into RobOcc’s robot, which moves internal weight to maintain equal pressure on both traction wheels (both from the ground below and from the weight from above) so that odometry is accurate for both. The motors meanwhile were chosen for their compact size and high power-tovolume ratio, being 60 mm in diameter and outputting 300 W, with which ROC-E is able to carry 100 kg of payload and with around 160 kg maximum loading. Additionally, the powertrain has been designed and carefully balanced such that any collisions that might occur (should the autonomous collision avoidance system fail, occasioned for instance by someone stepping suddenly into a corridor and crossing paths with ROC-E) are tempered. Part of this comes from the robot’s very slow maximum speed; however, in a prolonged collision, ROC-E’s wheels will spin in place rather than drive against the contacted object or person. “We worked a lot to find the right motor, with the right power – including a lot of simulation and hardware tests such that it drives with enough power to do the mission, but not enough to physically move a person or damage their shoes,” Dehlinger explains. “It gives you a gentle press at most, and then backs off to replan a safe and energy-efficient path.” The battery provides 1 kWh of energy for the motors and electronics, and is another COTS product manufactured by TYVA Energie in southeast France. Usefully for RobOcc’s environmentalfriendliness ambitions, the supplier will upgrade each battery pack or refurbish them down to replacing individual cells, rather than disposing of entire packs and modules when one cell hits end-of-life. “And if a whole pack should reach endof-life, TYVA has a full and normalised recycling process to re-use the whole thing,” Dehlinger adds. That process involves TYVA working with Corepile (which has collected and recycled several tonnes of TYVA’s old battery cells since 2021). Pack housings are emptied and refilled with new cells, and the old cells are re-harvested for their internal materials, with their zinc, manganese and cobalt (to name a few examples) being reused for new industrial components, regardless of their remaining capacity for energy storage. “Essentially, the only non-COTS component in the standard-issue ROC-E is the connector plate,” Dehlinger says. “That part is key to guiding connectors and ensuring the end-user cannot misconnect any cable; it just won’t fit, not without breaking!” Sensor architecture The ROC-E sensor arrangement covers 360° horizontally and 150° vertically around the robot, ensuring that objects with no ground footprint (such as raised barriers, security tape or personnel holding an arm or tool outwards) are not driven into. August/September 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The chassis (on both ROC-E and NOEME) wraps tightly around the wheels, preventing intrusions that could upset accurate odometry
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