Mads Hvilshøj

Autonomous industrial mobile manipulation (AIMM): past, present and future

– The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the interdisciplinary research field, autonomous industrial mobile manipulation (AIMM), with an emphasis on physical implementations and applications., – Following an introduction to AIMM, this paper investigates the missing links and gaps between the research and developments efforts and the real‐world application requirements, in order to bring the AIMM technology from laboratories to manufacturing environments. The investigation is based on 12 general application requirements for robotics: sustainability, configuration, adaptation, autonomy, positioning, manipulation and grasping, robot‐robot interaction, human‐robot interaction, process quality, dependability, and physical properties., – The concise yet comprehensive review provides both researchers (academia) and practitioners (industry) with a quick and gentle overview of AIMM. Furthermore, the paper identifies key open issues and promising research directions to realize real‐world integration and maturation of the AIMM technology., – This paper reviews the interdisciplinary research field, autonomous industrial mobile manipulation (AIMM).

“Little Helper” — An Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulator Concept

This paper presents the concept “autonomous industrial mobile manipulation” (AIMM) based on the mobile manipulator “Little Helper” – an ongoing research project at Aalborg University, Denmark, concerning the development of an autonomous and flexible manufacturing assistant. The paper focuses on the contextual aspects and the working principles of AIMM. Furthermore, the paper deals with the design principles and overall hardware and software architectures of “Little Helper” from a functional and modular mechatronics point of view, in order to create a generic AIMM platform. The design challenges faced in the project is to integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and dedicated highly integrated systems into an autonomous mobile manipulator system with the ability to perform diverse tasks in industrial environments. We propose an action based domain specific communication language for AIMM for routine and task definition, in order to lower the entry barriers for the users of the technology. To demonstrate the “Little Helper” concept a full-scale prototype has been built and different application examples carried out. Experiences and knowledge gained from this show promising results regarding industrial integration, exploitation and maturation of the AIMM technology.

Multiple part feeding: Real-world application for mobile manipulators

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present experience from a real‐world demonstration of autonomous industrial mobile manipulation (AIMM) based on the mobile manipulator “Little Helper” performing multiple part feeding at the pump manufacturer Grundfos A/S.Design/methodology/approach – The necessary AIMM technologies exist at a mature level – the reason that no mobile manipulators have yet been implemented in industrial environments, is that research in the right applications have not been carried out. The paper proposes a pragmatic approach consisting of: a commercial‐off‐the‐shelf (COTS) mobile manipulator system design (“Little Helper”), a suitable and comprehensive industrial application (multiple part feeding), and a general implementation concept for industrial environments (the “Bartender Concept”).Findings – Results from the three days of real‐world demonstration show that “Little Helper” is capable of successfully servicing four part feeders in three production cells using command signals ...

Designing modular manufacturing systems using mass customisation theories and methods

Today, manufacturing systems are developed as engineered to order (ETO) solutions tailored to produce a specific product or a limited product mix. However, such dedicated systems are not consistent with the current market demands for rapid product changes, high product variety, and customisation. In response, modular manufacturing systems (MMS) are evolving, which are aimed to possess the required responsiveness and to be the manufacturing paradigm of mass customisation (MC). Hereby, MMS brings the development process of manufacturing systems against configured to order (CTO). Up to now, research in MMS has primarily focused on potential benefits, basic principles, and enabling technologies, while the approaches of actually designing and creating modular architectures have received less attention. A potential to fill these gaps by applying MC theories and methods is identified based on the commonalities in the basic modular approaches of MC and MMS. This paper analyses this potential and evaluates it through three conducted cases within the domain of industrial automation and robotics. Based on the results, the paper discusses the prospective to form an MMS design framework by utilising selected MC theories and methods.