SBIR Phase II: Automated Perception for Robotic Chopsticks Manipulating Small and Large Objects in Constrained Spaces

SBIR 第二阶段：机器人筷子在受限空间中操纵小型和大型物体的自动感知

• 批准号: 2321919
• 负责人: Evan Drumwright
• 金额: $ 99.97万
• 依托单位: DEXTROUS ROBOTICS, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2321919&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Automated; Perception

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project supports the development of robotic solutions for unloading non-palletized packages of different shapes and sizes in logistics and similar industries. This technology may provide workers with more skilled jobs that remove the need for physically strenuous labor in unhealthy environments. The project seeks to increase US competitiveness in supply chain logistics ($150 billion / year market in the US) by helping solve long-standing and worsening employee recruitment and retention problems. The project helps the US become an early leader in the robotic manipulation of diverse objects in constrained, unstructured environments while simultaneously training a workforce capable of remote manipulation in safe environments.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project supports the development of robotic solutions for unloading non-palletized packages of different shapes and sizes in logistics and similar industries. At present, there are few commercially-available automated solutions for this task. Those few machines are brittle, slow, and only work well with uniform packages. The research objectives include: 1) upgrading the robot’s perception system to fuse high-speed vision and force sensory inputs, which will enable closed-loop picking with greater speed, more robustness, higher safety, and less package damage; 2) upgrading the robot’s vision system to perceive object categories beyond boxes; 3) investigating a user interface to allow a human operator to most-easily correct inevitable perception system errors; and 4) field testing the robotic system. The cumulative result will be a rigorously validated system that safely (for packages and users) operates at high speed with little manual intervention.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.

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响支持机器人解决方案的开发，用于卸载物流和类似行业中不同形状和大小的非托盘包装。这项技术可以为工人提供更熟练的工作，从而无需在不健康的环境中进行体力劳动。该项目旨在通过帮助解决长期存在且日益恶化的员工招聘和保留问题，提高美国在供应链物流（美国每年1500亿美元的市场）方面的竞争力。该项目帮助美国成为机器人在受限、非结构化环境中操作各种物体的早期领导者，同时培训一支能够在安全环境中远程操作的劳动力。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目支持机器人解决方案的开发，用于在物流和类似行业卸载不同形状和大小的非托盘包装。目前，很少有商业上可用于此任务的自动化解决方案。这几台机器很脆弱，速度很慢，只有在统一的软件包下才能很好地工作。研究目标包括：1)升级机器人的感知系统，融合高速视觉和力感输入，使闭环拾取具有更快的速度、更强的鲁棒性、更高的安全性和更少的包装损坏；2)升级机器人的视觉系统，使其能够感知盒子之外的物体类别；3)研究用户界面，使人类操作员能够最容易地纠正不可避免的感知系统错误；4)对机器人系统进行现场测试。累积的结果将是一个经过严格验证的系统，它可以安全地（对于包和用户）高速运行，几乎没有人工干预。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。