Exploiting robot simulation techniques to succeed in entertainment industry

Robots have been used in automotive industry since some decades. Both car manufacturers and their suppliers exploit industrial robots to accomplish high level manufacturing with key focus on quality and factory output. In the last decade robots have become also interesting for small and medium sized companies which has been a continuously growing market. In contrast to standard robot applications we present here two examples, where industrial robots were successfully taken out of their well known environment of production and manufacturing processes. KUKA\´s RoboCoaster™ is composed primarily from a high pay-load robot with a two-seater mounted to the robot\´s hand. Due to the free programmable 6 degrees-of-freedom one can imagine a huge variety of possible motion sequences for a s RoboCoaster™ ride. The second example describes the installation and usage of KUKA robots in the new "Die Another Day©" James Bond© movie. For both applications we discuss the role of simulation techniques to assist in the successful product development and placement to succeed in this very challenging robotic applications.