Robotic Arm - IRAS 6dof

WORK IN PROGRESS!!

About

IRAS is my self-made robot arm, designed to have a large work envelope and high carrying capacity. With IRAS I compete at Jugend-Forscht, a German science competition. Many parts are made from machined aluminium and 3d-printed.

IRAS is used to do research regarding intuitive control of industrial robotic arms. IRAS won’t be a stand alone robot arm but rather a system of the IRAS arm itself and many accessories for easy and intuitive control. However the foundation for my research is a capable robotic arm.

This robot arm is the second one I build, with the old one beeing fully 3d-printed, but still fairly large. With IRAS I want to achieve a carrying capacity of over 8kg with a work envelope exceeding 1 metre and a sub millimetre repeatability.

The precision and strenght is achieved by aluminium parts machined by JLCCNC.

Special thanks to JLCCNC, who machined those great looking parts, as well as Nabtesco, who support this project too.

(Disclaimer: This project is still in an early stage, and files aren’t accessible yet. The competition will be in the first quarter of 2026. This webiste will be constantly updated, as soon as new content is available)

More infos can be found on my website: jacobutermoehlen.com/projects/iras

1. How I assembled the first three joints for maximum rigidity:

I obted for a shrink fit between the bearings and the bearing housing annd rotating shaft as this will guaranty highest precision and rigidity without using a crossed roller bearing.

For this to work I heated up the bearings inner races and housings and cooled the other parts. Because of this and of the tight tolerances the parts had I then could assemble the parts easily and the joint assemblies will be super rigid.

2. Belt driven third joint: