Development of a multi-modal manipulator for an urban litter collection robot

城市垃圾收集机器人多模态机械手的研制

• 批准号: 1812781
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1812781
• 关键词: Development; multi; modal; manipulator; urban

Litter is ubiquitous in urban environments, with items such as cans, bottles, food wrappers, cigarette butts and chewing gum being some of the main culprits. Such items are not only detrimental to the appearance of any city, but can also represent a risk to infrastructure (e.g. by blocking drainage), health (e.g. by attracting disease carrying vermin) and the environment (e.g. by finding their way into rivers). Any city that attempts to keep this litter under control will spend a significant amount of money doing so, and will still be fighting an up-hill battle. The starting point for the research to which this PhD will contribute is the hypothesis that autonomous mobile robots could one day solve the problem of urban litter. Our long-term goal is to develop a heterogeneous robot swarm capable of cleaning up the most common forms of litter from all areas of a typical city, including hard-to-reach locations (e.g. in corners, behind obstacles or in bushes). The first steps towards with goal will be taken by a pair of PhD students working on different aspects of the challenge. The other student (who is not EPSRC-funded) will focus primarily on high-level control of the swarm, addressing issues including resource management, task allocation and navigation, while Nicholas will focus primarily on the mechanical platform as outlined below. The diverse nature of litter, and the unpredictable environment in which it is found, make this a demanding application for a robotic manipulator. As such, the main emphasis of the work is on the design of the manipulator. The mobility system will probably rely on more conventional solutions and may even be an off-the-shelf platform.Aim: The aim of this project is to develop a multi-modal robotic manipulator capable of handling a diverse range of litter types and operating in an uncertain real-world environment.Objectives:Identify the common types of litter found in urban environments and characterise their mechanical properties as these relate to the manipulation task.Identify potential strategies for picking up objects, including conventional grasping, suction-based grasping and standard "vacuuming".Identify the kinematic and control requirements of a manipulator for handling litter in urban environments.Identify candidate solutions for the manipulator, including conventional "hard robotics", soft robotics and hybrid approaches.Design a complete manipulator system based that satisfies the kinematic requirements and incorporates multiple modalities for handling a wide range of objects.Develop a control system for the manipulator that adaptively engages the different handling modalities as needed.Integrate the manipulator with a suitable mobile platform.Evaluate the system, first in a controlled lab environment and then in the real world.Applications and Benefits:Although the manipulator will be designed for the specific application of litter handling, a robust multi-modal manipulator could be useful in a wide range of alternative applications ranging from domestic service robots to agricultural robots.The key benefits of this research (as applied to the chosen application) will ultimately be cleaner cities at lower cost.

垃圾在城市环境中无处不在，罐头、瓶子、食品包装纸、烟头和口香糖等物品是主要的罪魁祸首。这类物品不仅有损于任何城市的外观，而且还可能对基础设施（例如堵塞排水系统）、健康（例如吸引携带疾病的害虫）和环境（例如流入河流）构成风险。任何一个试图控制垃圾的城市都将花费大量资金，而且仍然会打一场上坡战。这个博士将贡献的研究的出发点是假设自主移动的机器人有一天可以解决城市垃圾问题。我们的长期目标是开发一个异构机器人群，能够清理典型城市所有区域最常见的垃圾形式，包括难以到达的位置（例如角落，障碍物后面或灌木丛中）。实现目标的第一步将由一对博士生在挑战的不同方面工作。另一名学生（不是EPSRC资助的学生）将主要关注群体的高级控制，解决包括资源管理，任务分配和导航在内的问题，而尼古拉斯将主要关注如下所述的机械平台。垃圾的多样性和不可预测的环境，使其成为机器人机械手的一个苛刻的应用。因此，工作的主要重点是机械手的设计。移动系统可能会依赖于更传统的解决方案，甚至可能是一个现成的平台。目的：本项目的目的是开发一种多模态机器人机械手，能够处理各种类型的垃圾，并在不确定的现实环境中操作。目的：识别城市环境中常见的垃圾类型，并分析其机械特性，因为这些与操作任务有关。识别拾取物体的潜在策略，包括传统的抓取，基于吸力的抓取和标准“吸尘”。确定在城市环境中处理垃圾的机械手的运动学和控制要求。确定机械手的候选解决方案，包括传统的“硬机器人”，软机器人和混合方法。设计一个完整的机械手系统，满足运动学要求，并结合多种形式处理广泛的对象。开发一个控制系统适用于机械手，可根据需要自适应地接合不同的搬运模态。将机械手与合适的移动的平台集成。首先在受控的实验室环境中评估系统，然后在真实的世界中评估系统。应用和优势：虽然操纵器将被设计用于垃圾处理的特定应用，一个强大的多模态机械手可能是有用的，在广泛的替代应用，从家庭服务机器人到农业机器人。（适用于所选应用）最终将是成本更低的更清洁城市。