Intelligent Material Handling Systems: Autonomous Retrieval of Buried Objects

本研究的目的是开发和整合感知、规划和操作技术，以实现自主探测、发现和检索脆弱的埋藏物体。这种技术应用于从垃圾填埋场回收废物容器、从浅埋中回收弹药、在海底暴露电缆以及获取地外土壤/岩石样本。拟议的工作将推进当前在软件架构和推理系统领域的知识，用于处理地理材料的自主机器人，用于构建埋藏物体三维表示的感知，以及用于从地理或扩散材料中提取物体的操作。

The objective of this research is to develop and integrate the perception, planning, and manipulation technologies necessary for autonomously detecting, uncovering, and retrieving fragile buried objects. Such technology has application in the retrieval of waste containers from landfills, recovery of munitions from shallow burial, exposure of cables beneath the ocean floor, and acquisition of extraterrestrial soil/rock samples. The proposed work will advance current knowledge in the fields of software architectures and reasoning systems for autonomous robots working with geomaterials, perception for building three- dimensional representations of buried objects, and manipulation for extricating objects from geo or diffuse material.