OMNIVIL—An Autonomous Mobile Manipulator for Flexible Production

Abstract

Flexible production is a key element in modern industrial manufacturing. Autonomous mobile manipulators can be used to execute various tasks: from logistics, to pick and place, or handling. Therefore, autonomous robotic systems can even increase the flexibility of existing production environments. However, the application of robotic systems is challenging due to their complexity and safety concerns. This paper addresses the design and implementation of the autonomous mobile manipulator OMNIVIL. A holonomic kinematic design provides high maneuverability and the implemented sensor setup with the underlying localization strategies are robust against typical static and dynamic uncertainties in industrial environments. For a safe and efficient human–robot collaboration (HRC), a novel workspace monitoring system (WMS) is developed to detect human co-workers and other objects in the workspace. The multilayer sensor setup and the parallel data analyzing capability provide superior accuracy and reliability. An intuitive zone-based navigation concept is implemented, based on the workspace monitoring system. Preventive behaviors are predefined for a conflict-free interaction with human co-workers. A workspace analyzing tool is implemented for adaptive manipulation, which significantly simplifies the determination of suitable platform positions for a manipulation task.

Path Driven Dual Arm Mobile Co-Manipulation Architecture for Large Part Manipulation in Industrial Environments

“…From the industrial perspective, mobile manipulators offer an appealing and flexible solution as they allow extending manipulation capabilities of robots along the whole production area. As an example, Engemann et al [ 12 ] present an autonomous mobile manipulator for flexible production, which includes a novel workspace monitoring system to ensure safe human-robot collaboration.…”

A Robot-Assisted Large-Scale Inspection of Wind Turbine Blades in Manufacturing Using an Autonomous Mobile Manipulator

“…The general concept of zone-based navigation is inspired by zone management within an industrial production environment. The approach is based on virtual navigation zones [29]. Instead of using infrastructural markers, the zones can be defined in a given map by using 2D polygons.…”

“…The Human layer contributes the information of a multilayer and redundant workspace monitoring system (WMS) described in [29]. The WMS uses RGB and thermal images as well as Lidar data.…”

“…The sensor concept includes various sensor types to perceive the environment and the internal state of the robot. The workspace monitoring concept and the localization and positioning capabilities of the mobile platform were evaluated in various experiments ranging from static to highly dynamic scenarios [29]. The collaborative manipulator is equipped with an RGB-D camera (Intel-RealSense 435) and a radar module that works at 80 GHz with a 24 GHz bandwidth.…”

Reactive Self-Collision Avoidance for a Differentially Driven Mobile Manipulator

“…Furthermore, the degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the mobile robot typically provide the mobile manipulator with redundancy with respect to the tasks such as end-effector trajectory tracking. By utilizing these properties, a mobile manipulator can perform complex and diverse tasks such as painting [ 1 ], production [ 2 ], and manufacturing [ 3 ]. However, to perform these complex tasks in dynamic and unstructured environments, one of the most critical capabilities for a mobile manipulator is to detect self-collision by using proprioceptive or exteroceptive sensors and reactively generate sensor-based avoidance motion.…”