Ole Madsen

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).

Scheduling a single mobile robot for part-feeding tasks of production lines

This study deals with the problem of sequencing feeding tasks of a single mobile robot which is able to provide parts for feeders of machines on production lines. The mobile robot has to be scheduled in order to stoppage from lack of parts in the production line. A method based on the characteristics of feeders and inspired by the (

A method for automatic spray painting of unknown parts

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Integration of Mobile Manipulators in an Industrial Production

) inventory system, is thus applied to define time windows for the feeding tasks of the robot. The capacity of the robot is also taken into consideration. The performance criterion is to minimize total traveling time of the robot for a given planning horizon. A genetic algorithm-based heuristics is presented which results in a significant increase in the speed of finding near-optimal solutions. To evaluate the performance of the genetic algorithm-based heuristic, a mixed-integer programming model has been developed for the problem. A case study is implemented at an impeller production line in a real factory and computational experiments are also conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

A System to Navigate a Robot into a Ship Structure

Today, the manufacturing industries increasingly demand more flexible and agile production systems. This demand is also reflected onto the field of robotics, as the majority of robots in the industry today are bolted to the ground and dedicated to a specific task. An Autonomous Industrial Mobile Manipulator (AIMM) offers a higher level of hardware flexibility, but in order to benefit from this flexibility the demand for new approaches to operating and programming new tasks is inevitable. Research within this topic has proposed a task-level-programming, where robot programming is generalized into a selection of skills. This paper presents a human-robot interface based on task-level-programming and kinesthetic teaching, which was assessed by nine people of varying robotics experience. In evaluation of the tests several improvements to the HRI are proposed, while the underlying concept is found to simplify programming of industrial task and thus making this available to the production floor operator.

Multiple part feeding: Real-world application for mobile manipulators

Todays industrial automation of spray painting is limited to high part volumes and robot trajectories that are programmed by off-line programming and manual teach-in. This paper presents an approach that uses range image data to obtain the geometry of an unknown part and to automatically generate the robot spray painting trajectories. Laser strip range sensors are installed in front of the paint booth to acquire a range image of the part. Utilizing process knowledge (a geometric library containing constraints specific for the painting application) geometric primitives are detected in the range data. From the geometric primitives a normal vector field is generated that enables to extract main faces. The main faces are located in a 3D space and the process knowledge related to each geometric primitive is utilized to obtain the trajectory for the paint gun. Results of painting a car mirror and steering column are given.

Interactive Assembly Guide Using Augmented Reality

Ship construction is a major industry worldwide, and many tasks have been automated. One task that is still solely carried out manually is welding of studs. This paper presents a semi-autonomous approach to robotic stud the welding with focus on the HRI (Human-Robot Interaction). The welding itself is carried out autonomously by an autonomous industrial mobile manipulator (AIMM). An intuitive interface is proposed for the AIMM to ensure safe and correct operation. The interface allows non-expert operators to program, verify, and reprogram the robots task on the manufacturing site. Task specific information is projected directly into object space as augmented reality using a projector mounted on the robot end-effector. Specifically, stud positions are shown on the ship wall before welding is initiated, and positions can be added, deleted, and moved using an IMU as pointing device. The contribution of this paper is an intuitive interface for on-site programming of stud welding robots; implemented in a skill-based task programming architecture. The system is designed and implemented, and proof-of-concept tests are presented.

Projecting robot intentions into human environments

Purpose – The purpose of this study has been to evaluate the technology of autonomous mobile manipulation in a real world industrial manufacturing environment. The objective has been to obtain experience in the integration with existing equipment and determine key challenges in maturing the technology to a level of readiness suitable for industry. Despite much research within the topic of industrial mobile manipulation, the technology has not yet found its way to the industry. To mature the technology to a level of readiness suitable for industry real-world experience is crucial. This paper reports from such a real-world industrial experiment with two mobile manipulators. Design/methodology/approach – In the experiment, autonomous industrial mobile manipulators are integrated into the actual manufacturing environment of the pump manufacturer Grundfos. The two robots together solve the task of producing rotors; a task constituted by several sub-tasks ranging from logistics to complex assembly. With a total...