Lab facilities

Outdoor Drone Dome

This is an outdoor test location for ground and air robots. This space is equipped with nets so that you can fly and test safely with drones with all outdoor conditions. The location can be equipped with a Truss system of 9x9 meters and 6 meters high for placing objects near the ground or in the air. In addition, the research group has a Mavermind localization set. This system is able to track objects +/- 2cm accurately.

Indoor Optitrack Lab

This is an indoor test location of approximately 6x6 meters equipped with the Optitrack prime 13 motion caption system. This test location is used for testing and tracking drones and ground robots. In addition, the room is equipped with a safety harness for drones so that it can be tested with different controllers for drones without crashing to the ground. 

Smart Industrial Systems Lab

There is plenty to learn in the field of industrial automation and robotization. Especially, when industrial (collaborative) robots and autonomous guided vehicles (AGV’s) come in different shapes and sizes and with the most diverse specifications. Whatever type of system or platform you use, it ultimately revolves around the application within the automation process.

In our Smart Industrial Systems lab we can facilitate applied research to find innovative solutions for your automation challenges. There are several collaborative robots available to be used in for instance automated material handling applications, pick-and-place applications, smart logistics and human-cobot collaboration. As a Robot Operating System (ROS) knowledge institute, engineers, researchers and students can experience what is feasible to standardize various programming tasks and to integrate robotic systems in an industrial environment. In additional,  the Smart Industrial Systems lab provides training and courses to industry and students to become robotic systems professionals.

Vision Lab

This is a Lab room equipped with different types of cameras, lenses, lighting and filters for the development of vision systems and product inspection. 

The Vision lab is a dedicated facility in our research group, helping engineers, students and researchers deliver innovative computer vision or imaging solutions. Here, researchers use cameras, illumination systems, imaging optics and filters to investigate the feasibility of proof-of-concept setups for various industrial vision applications, e.g., quality inspections, object recognition, shape matching. Professionals have direct access to optical hardware, and (educational) software licenses and support for their development and testing of vision algorithms for a wide variety of applications.

Support can be provided in the machine vision design process: i.e., lens and camera selection, illumination and filtering but also by applying rule based computer vision algorithms (OpenCV, Halcon) and artificial intelligence for classification and object recognition challenges.

Flexible Test Facilities

Mechatronics Research Group has several rooms that can be used flexibly for building larger systems or developing SLAM (Simultaneous Location And Mapping).

Collaboration with Space53 and TValley 

Via the project partners of the research group, students are able to visit and make use of facilities outside Saxion. Saxion is partner in the innovation cluster Space53 (Airport Twente) for testing autonomous drone flights and missions. We are also partner in the innovation cluster TValley. Via these networks students can work in challenging environments to take autonomous systems and smart industrial robots to the application and the market.

Other facilities and resources

• SPOT from Boston Dynamics / Clearpath
• Mechanical workshop
• Electric workshop
• 3D printers
• UR5 robot arm
• Frank Emika Panda robot arm
• Clearpath Dingo ground robot
• Various custom ground robots

Variety of drones, including:

• Acecore Zoe
• DJI Matrice M600
• DJI Matrice M100 
• Holybro x500 
• Several custom drones