The aim of the Helmholtz Future Project ARCHES is the development of heterogeneous, autonomous and interconnected robotic systems in a consortium of the Helmholtz Centers DLR, AWI, GEOMAR and KIT from 2018 to 2020. The aspired fields of application are as heterogeneous as the robotic systems and span from environmental monitoring of the oceans over technical crisis intervention to the exploration of the solar system.

KIT leads the efforts to develop methods for grasping and manipulation in the domains of planetary and ocean exploration. In particular, KIT will develop a manipulation toolkit providing methods for grasp, motion and manipulation planning as well as approaches for coordinated execution of manipulation tasks in robot teams. The focus lays on providing grasping and manipulation skills for known, familiar and unknown rigid objects. The skills will be tailored to several levels of autonomy ranging from teleoperation to semi-autonomous and autonomous execution.