RI: Small: Mechanics, Manipulation, and Perception of Deformable Objects for Robotic Manufacturing

该项目的动机是美国中小型企业对合规部件的自动化处理和组装的需求。作为一个案例研究，它侧重于机器人安装线束(在电气连接器中终止的一束电线)。这项制造任务无处不在，但很难实现自动化，因为它需要对线束变形进行推理。该项目正在用基于物体形状的新表示的可变形物体的操纵和感知的新算法来解决这一挑战。它首先考虑操纵一条导线(线束的一部分)。它将导线的形状表示为一个几何最优控制问题的解，并证明了该问题的所有解的集合是一个光滑的流形，可以用一个坐标图来参数化。这一结果导致了一种工作良好且易于实现的操作规划算法。目标包括将该模型扩展到考虑可变刚度、塑性变形和分支；使操作计划对扰动具有健壮性；从传感器数据估计材料特性和形状；以及实验演示机器人安装线束。外展工作包括共同指导为期一周的高中生暑期研究所，指导本科生研究人员，以及组织一个产业论坛。

The project is motivated by the need of small-to-medium sized businesses in the United States to automate handling and assembly of compliant parts. As a case study, it focuses on robotic installation of a wire harness (a bundle of wires that terminate in electrical connectors). This manufacturing task is ubiquitous but hard to automate because it requires reasoning about deformation of the wire harness. The project is addressing this challenge with new algorithms for manipulation and perception of deformable objects that are based on novel representations of object shape. It considers first the manipulation of a single wire (one piece of a wire harness). It expresses the shape of this wire as the solution to a geometric optimal control problem, and shows that the set of all solutions to this problem is a smooth manifold that can be parameterized by a single coordinate chart. This result leads to an algorithm for manipulation planning that works well and is easy to implement. Objectives include extending this model to consider variable stiffness, plastic deformation, and branching; making manipulation plans robust to perturbation; estimating material properties and shape from sensor data; and experimentally demonstrating robotic installation of a wire harness. Outreach efforts include co-directing a week-long summer institute for high school students, mentoring undergraduate researchers, and organizing an industrial forum.