SBIR Phase II: Smart Robotic Sanding Cells for Composite Parts in High-Mix Applications

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛影响旨在改善制造业工人的生活质量，帮助美国制造商在全球市场上保持成本竞争力，并提高制造零件的质量。所提出的机器人单元可以减少工人执行符合人体工程学的具有挑战性的砂磨任务的需要，并降低砂磨生产线上工人受伤的风险。开发的技术将使人类操作员能够专注于高层次的决策和制造任务的创造性方面，而机器人助理则执行低层次的繁琐任务。此外，该技术使人类操作员能够指导团队操作。这种能力将提高工人的生产力。目前，美国有3000多家公司从事复合材料制造。由于工人短缺和劳动力流失率高，这些公司中的大多数都面临挑战。这些挑战导致交付时间更长。该项目可以使制造商提高质量和降低成本。此外，委员会还认为，该技术可以使制造商减少对人力的依赖，从而缩短零件交付时间，并通过添加或删除机器人单元，轻松地根据需求的变化扩大生产能力。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发一种机器人打磨解决方案，用于高性能的通过在机器人打磨过程中提供不确定性下的安全性，以及通过机器人快速执行安全有效的轨迹来减少周期时间，从而实现混合应用。该奖项将使计算进步，使机器人能够根据任务描述自动生成和安全执行轨迹，从而对自己进行编程。 该项目还将使计算算法能够考虑环境中存在的不确定性，使机器人在高混合应用中用于砂磨操作。通过选择适当的传感器和工具，将开发一个机器人砂磨单元，用于在高混合应用中处理大型零件。算法将被开发为快速和安全的工件定位在机器人单元，而工件是安全的具有成本效益的，通用的，低成本的夹具。将开发算法，以确定在机器人单元中打磨大型零件所需的最少设置次数，并生成机器人轨迹，以产生工具运动模式，确保高效安全的打磨操作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The broader impacts of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seek to improve the quality of life for manufacturing workers, help U.S. manufacturers remain cost-competitive in the global market, and improve the quality of the manufactured parts. The proposed robotic cells may reduce the need for workers to perform ergonomically challenging sanding tasks and reduce the risk of worker injuries on sanding lines. The developed technologies will enable the human operators to focus on high-level decision making and the creative aspects of the manufacturing tasks, while the robotic assistants perform the low-level tedious tasks. Moreover, this technology enables the human operator to guide the team operation. This ability will improve worker productivity. Currently, there are more than 3000 companies in the U.S. performing composite fabrication. Most of these companies face challenges due to a shortage of workers and high labor churn. These challenges lead to longer delivery times. This project may enable manufacturers to improve quality and lower costs. Moreover, the technology may enable manufacturers to reduce time to part delivery by reducing the reliance on human labor and easily scaling production capacity with the change in demand by adding or removing robotic cells.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a robotic sanding solution for high-mix applications by providing safety under uncertainty during robotic sanding and reducing cycle time by fast execution of safe and efficient trajectories by the robot. This award will make computational advances to enable robots to program themselves by automatically generating and safely executing trajectories based on the task description. The project will also enable the computational algorithms to account for the uncertainties present in the environment, making robots useful for sanding operations in high-mix applications. A robotic sanding cell for handling large parts in high-mix applications will be developed by selecting the appropriate sensors and tools. Algorithms will be developed for fast and safe workpiece localization in the robotic cell while the workpiece is secured with a cost-effective, general-purpose, low-cost fixture. Algorithms will be developed to determine the minimum number of setups needed for sanding large parts in the robotic cell and to generate robot trajectories to produce tool motion patterns that ensure efficient and safe sanding operation.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.