Automated Assembly of Seeding Toolbars at Vaderstad

目标是实现Vaderstad Industries（https：//www.vaderstad.com/ca-en/）制造的“播种工具栏”的自动化组装。播种机由小的模块化部分组成，称为控制部分，一次组装一个。首先，将两个控制部分从右侧和左侧组装到播种工具栏的中心核心。另外的控制部分顺序地组装到这两个控制部分。目前，将控制部分移动到它们的预组装位置以构建整个播种工具栏是由人类操作员执行的。每个控制部分在控制部分装配线内组装后，被放置在四个轮式液压千斤顶上，通过该千斤顶，使用示教器将控制部分引导至其最终预装配位置。然后将控制部分螺栓连接到播种工具栏的中心核心或已经组装到工具栏中的其他控制部分。 Vaderstad对播种机装配过程的机械化和自动化非常感兴趣。这将通过将伺服控制器添加到控制部分安装在其上的轮式液压千斤顶作为运动单元来实现，并将控制部分进行自主运动规划和导航到其期望的姿势，同时避免与静态（例如，装配线的部件、播种工具栏等）和/或动态对象（例如，工作人员、高架门式起重机的移动部件等）。研究目标是开发基于传感器的运动规划，控制和导航算法，以自动化将每个控制部分移动到播种机上的预组装配置的整个过程，因此，不需要人类操作员来导航和引导它们。这将通过使用通过安装在控制部分上的两个窄视场深度全景变焦（PTZ）摄像机以及位于制造车间高架基础设施上固定位置的一个宽视场摄像机获得的信息来实现。

The objective is to automate the assembly of the "seeding toolbar" manufactured at the Vaderstad Industries (https://www.vaderstad.com/ca-en/). The seeding toolbars consist of small and modular sections, called control sections, that are assembled together one at a time. First, two control sections are assembled to the central core of the seeding toolbar from right and left. Further control sections are sequentially assembled to these two control sections. Currently, moving the control sections to their pre-assembly positions, to build the entire seeding toolbar, is carried out by human operators. Each control section, after being built within the control-section assembly line, is put on four wheeled hydraulic jacks by which they are guided towards their final pre-assembly location using a teach pendant. The control sections are then bolted to either the central core of the seeding toolbar or other control sections already assembled into the toolbar. Vaderstad is keenly interested in mechanizing and automating the assembly process of their seeding toolbars. This will be achieved by adding servo controllers to the wheeled hydraulic jacks that the control sections are mounted on, as the locomotion unit, and conducting autonomous motion planning and navigation of control sections to their desired poses, while avoiding collision with static (e.g., parts of the assembly line, the seeding toolbar, etc.) and/or dynamic objects (e.g., work crew, moving parts of the overhead gantry cranes, etc.). The research objective is to develop sensor-based motion planning, control, and navigation algorithms to automate the entire process of moving each control section to its pre-assembly configuration on the seeding toolbars, therefore, no human operator would be needed to navigate and guide them. This will be achieved by using the information obtained via two narrow-field-of-depth Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras on board mounted onto the control sections and also one wide-view camera in a fixed position on the overhead infrastructure on the manufacturing floor.