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

该项目的动机是在美国的中小型企业需要自动化处理和组装的兼容部件。作为一个案例研究，它侧重于机器人安装线束（一束电线，终止于电气连接器）。这种制造任务是普遍存在的，但很难自动化，因为它需要对线束的变形进行推理。该项目正在解决这一挑战的新算法的操纵和感知的可变形物体是基于新的表示对象的形状。它首先考虑单根导线（线束的一部分）的操作。它表示的形状，这条线的几何最优控制问题的解决方案，并表明，该问题的所有解决方案的集合是一个光滑的流形，可以参数化的一个单一的坐标图。这一结果导致一个算法的操作规划，工作良好，易于实现。目标包括扩展该模型，考虑可变刚度，塑性变形和分支;使操纵计划对扰动鲁棒;从传感器数据估计材料特性和形状;并实验演示机器人安装线束。外联工作包括共同指导为期一周的高中生暑期研究所，指导本科研究人员，并组织一个工业论坛。

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.