FW-HTF-R/Collaborative Research: RoboChemistry: Human-Robot Collaboration for the Future of Organic Synthesis

FW-HTF-R/合作研究：RoboChemistry：人机协作打造有机合成的未来

• 批准号: 2222953
• 负责人: Daniel Szafir
• 金额: $ 59.82万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2222953&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: FW; HTF; Collaborative; Research; RoboChemistry

Chemical R&D is the backbone of countless technologies including life-saving medicines, energy harvesting and storage materials, and additive manufacturing. Chemists, who hold nearly 100,000 US jobs, face considerable risks in the workplace, leading to tens of thousands of injuries per year. Chemists must take great care to avoid chemical exposures, fires and explosions while handling the high physical and cognitive demands inherent in the laborious, manual nature of synthetic chemistry procedures. Intelligent robotic technologies could improve working conditions for chemists by reducing these risks and challenges, while accelerating the pace of chemical R&D. Robots have already revolutionized the workplace in many industries, such as manufacturing, packaging, and shipping, but most chemical R&D labs remain devoid of collaborative robotic assistance, likely due to the high number, diversity, and complexity of tasks involved in this work. Instead, chemical synthesis robots currently in development are designed to replace or displace the human chemist. The objective of this proposal is to evaluate the benefits and challenges of an alternative approach, where collaborative robots deployed in the lab work together with chemists and provide them with helpful task assistance, rather than end-to-end automation of all activities. This approach has the potential to improve laboratory safety, increase accessibility for chemists with disabilities, and increase productivity and job satisfaction for chemists. The project will also engage young women to consider STEM careers in chemistry and robotics through an afterschool workshop series that exposes them to professional chemists, roboticists, and hands-on chemistry automation experiments. Partners in this collaborative work include University of Colorado at Boulder, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and New Iridium, Inc. This project is funded by the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier program which supports multi-disciplinary research to sustain economic competitiveness, promote worker well-being, lifelong and pervasive learning, and quality of life, and illuminate the emerging social and economic context and drivers of innovations that are shaping the future of jobs and work. To realize the vision of collaborative mobile robots that assist chemical R&D workers in order to reduce mental/physical workload while improving safety and efficiency, this project integrates three threads of research: (1) classify, model, and evaluate robotic efficacy in various chemistry procedures, (2) develop novel task planning and interaction programming for mobile robots to interact with synthetic chemists, and (3) create hardware and software solutions that ensure safe and autonomous deployment of mobile collaborative robots in unstructured laboratory environments. Weaving these three threads of research together, the project will identify scenarios in which human-robot teams may collaborate effectively on various specific subtasks of organic synthesis procedures. Chemists from New Iridium and chemist/materials scientist trainees will perform tasks representative of routine synthetic chemistry procedures in the R&D lab, both in the presence and absence of a teleoperated collaborative mobile robot performing prescribed assistive task support. The efficacy of co-robot assistance will be evaluated and quantified by a combination of objective measures associated with the procedure (time to completion, reaction yield, number and or severity of errors, etc.) and subjective measures of the chemists’ experience with the robotic assistant, including survey-based assessment of their cognitive and physical workload, and sense of personal safety and efficiency. The feedback loop between roboticists and chemists will allow the team to iteratively identify and refine collaboration scenarios for chemist-robot pairs that enhance safety, productivity, accessibility, and job satisfaction for chemical R&D workers. The newly developed open-source software underpinning these collaboration scenarios will enable any laboratory in possession of an appropriate robot to replicate, use and adapt these scenarios in their own workplaces. Ultimately, this research will make fundamental contributions to both chemistry and robotics while helping to unite these two historically disconnected fields.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.

化学研发是无数技术的骨干，包括挽救生命的药物，能源收集和存储材料以及增加的制造业。持有近100,000个美国工作岗位的化学家在工作场所面临着相当大的风险，每年导致成千上万的伤害。化学家必须非常小心，以避免化学暴露，火灾和爆炸，同时处理实验室固有的高物理和认知需求，这是合成化学程序的手动性质。智能机器人技术可以通过减少这些风险和挑战来改善化学家的工作条件，同时加快化学研发的速度。机器人已经彻底改变了许多行业的工作场所，例如制造，包装和运输，但是大多数化学研发实验室仍然没有协作机器人援助，这可能是由于这项工作涉及的任务的数量，多样性和复杂性。取而代之的是，目前正在开发的化学合成机器人旨在取代或取代人类化学家。该建议的目的是评估替代方法的收益和挑战，在该方法中，部署在实验室中的协作机器人与化学家一起工作，并为他们提供有用的任务援助，而不是所有活动的端到端自动化。这种方法有可能提高实验室安全性，增加对残疾化学家的可及性，并提高化学家的生产力和工作满意度。该项目还将吸引年轻女性通过课后研讨会系列的化学和机器人技术来考虑STEM职业，该系列将其暴露于专业的化学家，机器人和动手化学自动化实验中。 Partners in this collaborative work include University of Colorado at Boulder, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and New Iridium, Inc. This project is funded by the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier program which supports multi-disciplinary research to sustain economic competitiveness, promote worker well-being, lifelong and pervasive learning, and quality of life, and illuminate the emerging social and economic context and drivers of innovations that are塑造工作和工作的未来。为了实现协作移动机器人的愿景，该机器人有助于化学研发工人，以减少精神/身体工作量的同时提高安全性和效率，该项目整合了三个研究线程：（1）在各种化学程序中对机器人效率进行分类，模型和评估，（2）（2）开发新的任务计划和互动型机器人，以确保与合成化学界的既定性机器人进行互动，并与合成的化学家进行交互（3）非结构化实验室环境中的协作机器人。将这三个研究线编织在一起，该项目将确定人类机器人团队可以在有机合成程序的各种特定子任务中有效合作的场景。新的虹膜和化学家/材料科学家学员的化学家将执行代表R＆D实验室中常规合成化学程序的任务，无论是在存在和没有远程处理的协作移动机器人的情况下，执行了处方辅助任务支持。通过与程序（完成的时间，反应产量，数量或或严重性等）以及化学家在机器人助手的经验（包括基于调查的认知能力和身体工作的评估）以及个人安全和个人安全和效率的感觉，将评估和量化共同机器人辅助的效率以及化学家在机器人助手中的经验，以及对化学家在机器人助手中的经验的组合以及化学家对化学家经验的主体测量的效率。机器人和化学家之间的反馈循环将使团队能够迭代地识别并完善化学机器人对的协作方案，以提高化学研发工人的安全性，生产率，可及性和工作满意度。这些合作场景的新开发的开源软件将使在适当的机器人中的任何实验室都可以在自己的工作场所复制，使用和适应这些方案。最终，这项研究将对化学和机器人技术做出基本贡献，同时帮助团结这两个历史上脱节的领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识分子和更广泛的影响来审查标准，通过评估来诚实地支持支持。