SBIR Phase II: Automated Perception for Robotic Chopsticks Manipulating Small and Large Objects in Constrained Spaces

SBIR 第二阶段：机器人筷子在受限空间中操纵小型和大型物体的自动感知

• 批准号: 2321919
• 负责人: Evan Drumwright
• 金额: $ 99.97万
• 依托单位: DEXTROUS ROBOTICS, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2321919&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Automated; Perception

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project supports the development of robotic solutions for unloading non-palletized packages of different shapes and sizes in logistics and similar industries. This technology may provide workers with more skilled jobs that remove the need for physically strenuous labor in unhealthy environments. The project seeks to increase US competitiveness in supply chain logistics ($150 billion / year market in the US) by helping solve long-standing and worsening employee recruitment and retention problems. The project helps the US become an early leader in the robotic manipulation of diverse objects in constrained, unstructured environments while simultaneously training a workforce capable of remote manipulation in safe environments.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project supports the development of robotic solutions for unloading non-palletized packages of different shapes and sizes in logistics and similar industries. At present, there are few commercially-available automated solutions for this task. Those few machines are brittle, slow, and only work well with uniform packages. The research objectives include: 1) upgrading the robot’s perception system to fuse high-speed vision and force sensory inputs, which will enable closed-loop picking with greater speed, more robustness, higher safety, and less package damage; 2) upgrading the robot’s vision system to perceive object categories beyond boxes; 3) investigating a user interface to allow a human operator to most-easily correct inevitable perception system errors; and 4) field testing the robotic system. The cumulative result will be a rigorously validated system that safely (for packages and users) operates at high speed with little manual intervention.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）II期项目的更广泛/商业影响支持机器人解决方案的开发，用于卸载物流和类似行业中不同形状和规模的非货币包装。这项技术可能会为工人提供更熟练的工作，以消除在不健康的环境中对身体强大的劳动力的需求。该项目试图通过帮助解决长期存在和令人担忧的员工招聘和保留问题来提高美国在供应链物流（美国 /年市场的1500亿美元）中的竞争力。该项目帮助美国成为对潜水员对物体对物体进行机器人操纵的早期领导者，同时培训能够在安全环境中进行远程操纵的劳动力。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目支持机器人解决方案的开发，以开发机器人解决方案，以拆卸数字和相似行业的非载荷包装。目前，对于此任务，几乎没有商业上可用的自动化解决方案。那几个机器易碎，缓慢，并且仅与均匀的包装搭配得很好。研究目标包括：1）将机器人的感知系统升级到融合高速视觉和力量感官输入，这将使闭环拾取以更高的速度，更健壮，更高的安全性和更少的包装损坏； 2）升级机器人的视觉系统以感知框以外的对象类别； 3）调查用户界面，以允许人类操作员最终不可避免的感知系统错误； 4）机器人系统测试现场。累积结果将是一个经过严格验证的系统，该系统（对于包装和用户）在几乎没有手动干预的情况下安全地运行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响来通过评估来支持的。