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/商业潜力是开发一个机器人解决方案，以自动化施工中危险和重复的钢筋捆绑任务。钢筋绑扎是由“钢筋杀手”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。消除重复的弯腰和捆绑动作可以对经常遭受腕管并发症和背部损伤的工人的生活质量产生重大影响。在美国，仅用于桥面的钢筋捆绑服务市场在未来十年的价值将超过3.7亿美元。一般建筑市场估计每年至少花费13亿美元用于螺纹钢绑扎。优质的交通基础设施对国防准备、经济竞争力、灾害反应、货物交换和生活水平有直接影响。然而，目前美国被认为有缺陷的桥梁积压越来越多。一个成功的第二期项目可能在解决基础设施维修积压问题和使国家经济引擎的关键基础正常运作方面发挥关键作用。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目旨在展示多个机器人来执行自动钢筋捆绑。许多建筑项目有数千个钢筋交叉路口需要打结；提出了一种检测这些交叉口的系统。将改进和集成各种检测螺纹钢的算法，构建半自动化的螺纹钢图绘制软件。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，识别要绑的交叉点，降落在它们上面并将钢筋绑在一起。一小群定制的无人机原型将被建造用于演示。对于大多数建筑项目来说，执行工作的速度至关重要，这意味着每个十字路口必须在几秒钟内连接起来，以便可行地采用拟议的技术。这个项目的成功可能会导致第一个商业上可行的非结构化环境的移动操作机器人群。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.