SBIR Phase II: Mobile manipulation platform for rebar tying

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种机器人解决方案，以自动化施工中危险和重复的钢筋绑扎任务。钢筋绑扎是由“rodbusters”完成的，其中88%的人报告说，他们在职业生涯中患有某种形式的肌肉骨骼疾病。去除重复的弯腰和捆绑动作可以对通常患有腕管并发症和背部损伤的工人的生活质量产生重大影响。在未来十年内，美国仅用于桥面的钢筋绑扎服务市场价值超过3.7亿美元。据估计，一般建筑市场每年至少花费13亿美元用于钢筋绑扎。高质量的交通基础设施对国防准备、经济竞争力、灾害应对、商品交换和生活水平有直接影响。然而，目前，美国有越来越多的积压桥梁被认为是有缺陷的。一个成功的第二阶段项目可能在解决基础设施维护积压和允许国民经济引擎的关键基础正常运行方面发挥关键作用。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在展示多个机器人执行自动钢筋绑扎。许多建筑工程中有成千上万的钢筋交叉点需要绑扎，提出了一种检测这些交叉点的系统。将改进和集成各种用于检测钢筋的算法，以构建半自动钢筋地图构建软件。该研究项目将建立一个飞机配置，并开发各种计算机视觉和控制算法，以证明无人机可以飞越放置的钢筋，识别要连接的交叉点，降落在它们上面并将钢筋连接在一起。一小群定制的无人机原型将用于演示。对于大多数建筑项目来说，执行工作的速度至关重要，这意味着每个交叉口必须在几秒钟内连接，以便可行地采用所提出的技术。该项目的成功可能会导致第一个商业上可行的移动的操纵机器人集群的非结构化环境。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a robotic solution to automate a dangerous and repetitive rebar tying task in construction. Rebar tying is performed by “rodbusters”, 88% of whom reported that they suffered some form of musculoskeleton disorder during their career. Removing the repetitive bending over and tying actions can have significant impacts on the quality life of the workers who commonly suffer from carpal tunnel complications and back injuries. The market for rebar tying services solely for bridge decks in the US is valued at over $370 million across the next ten years. The general construction market is estimated to spend at least $1.3 billion annually for rebar tying. A quality transportation infrastructure has direct impacts on national defense readiness, economic competitiveness, disaster response, exchange of goods, and standards of living. However, at present, the US has a growing backlog of bridges deemed deficient. A successful Phase II project may play a key role in addressing the infrastructure maintenance backlog and allowing a key foundation of the national economic engine to function properly.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to demonstrate multiple robots to perform automated rebar tying. Many construction projects have thousands of rebar intersections that need to be tied; A system to detect these intersections is proposed. Various algorithms for detecting rebar will be improved and integrated to build a semi-automated rebar map building software. The research project will build an aircraft configuration and develop various computer vision and controls algorithms to demonstrate that a drone can fly over placed rebar, identify the intersections to tie, land on top of them and tie the rebar together. A small swarm of the customized drone prototypes will be built for demonstration. Speed in executing the job is critical for most construction projects implying that each intersection has to be tied in a matter of seconds for viable adoption of the proposed technology. The success of this project may result in the first commercially-viable swarm of mobile manipulation robots for unstructured environments.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.