Periodic Reporting for period 3 - REMODEL (Robotic tEchnologies for the Manipulation of cOmplex DeformablE Linear objects)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-11-01 bis 2023-10-31
The REMODEL project aims to develop low-cost and affordable hardware and software tools as well as innovative methodologies enabling the implementation of manufacturing activities involving the manipulation of complex deformable objects in industrial automated production lines. REMODEL main target is the robotic handling of Deformable Linear Objects (DLOs) and the routing of multiple DLOs to create wiring harnesses, by deeply understanding their complex behaviour, including elasticity and plasticity, and embedding this knowledge, together with proper manipulation skills and perception, based on vision and tactile sensing, into a bimanual robotic system. In WIRES, where three of the REMODEL consortium partners were involved, the basic tools to enable the routing of electric wires and their fitting into standard electromechanical components by means of a conventional industrial manipulator with fixed base have been investigated and developed. REMODEL will extend the applicability of these robotic technologies to other domains, by introducing bimanual coordinated dual-arm manipulators and making them able to manipulate long cables as well as complex wiring harness made of multiple cables and with several branches and connectors at each end. Moreover, the presence of obstacles, multiple contact points along the cable path will be taken into account, allowing the usage of the developed technologies in the field of aerospace and automotive manufacturing. Aiming at showing the applicability of the REMODEL outcomes to other fields, the handling of silicon hoses for medical usage and its inspection for quality check will be also considered.
REMODEL aims to promote EU 2020 targets of a smart and inclusive economy, fostering socially sustainable, safe and attractive workplaces by creating high-tech companies involved in innovative manufacturing. This will increase EU industrial competitiveness and sustainability in a global world through R&I activities for the timely development of new knowledge-based production, technologies and systems, competitive and sustainable production plants, industrial automation, machinery and robotics.
With reference to the REMODEL objectives, the following advancements have been achieved in the third reporting period:
- Realtime tracking of DLO shape and behaviour has been developed, and this technology has been applied also to the case of wiring harness for manufacturing and assembly purposes;
- Manipulation algorithms based on perception data and DLO models exploiting both data-driven and model-based methods, to join task planning and feedback control have been developed for both the single-cable and the wiring harness case;
- The implementation of the final demonstrators for all the Use Cases considered in the project have been achieved;
- Evaluation of the final demonstrators by the workers have been performed and feedbacks have been collected and analyzed to evaluated the project results.
The analisys performed during the project highlighted 13 exploitable results:
1- CATIA application for flexible robotics programming
2- Generation of robot planning from product (3D) CAD files for switchgear wiring
3- Multi-sensorized modular and reconfigurable manipulation tools
4- Dual arm robotic platform for switchgear wiring
5- Manipulator for Quality Checks in Extrusion Processes in biomedical industry
6- Dual arm robotic platform for Automotive Industry
7- CAD Platform Interface to provide the system planner, the layout and product inputs
8- Integrated dual arm manipulation system for interconnection systems automatic manufacturing process.
9- Automated robot / sensor calibration toolkit
10- Bimanual manipulation system for wiring harness manipulation.
11- Interactive perception module exploiting vision and touch
12- Streamlined User Interface for Enhanced ROS Interaction
13- Dual arm robotic platform for autonomous switchgear connection checking
Moreover, a patent application about the REMODEL resutls have been registered and a spin-off company for the exploitation and commercialization of project results has been created.
These results have been disseminated through different channels:
2 Organisation of Conferences
7 Organisation of Workshops
4 Press release
15 Participation to Conferences
15 Participation to Workshops
1 Brokerage Event
3 Pitch Events
3 Participation in activities organised jointly with other EU project(s)
The REMODEL robotic system is conceived to acquire information about the product directly from the CAD platform, without any human intervention, and to preprocess the product itself before the human intervention needed to complete the manufacturing. In this way, many of the most repetitive and stressful operations can be carried out by the robot, eventually also during night shifts, while the workers will be devoted to more qualified and decision-making activities, in which the added value coming from their expertise can be fully exploited. The task learnt by the robot will be adapted online to the initial configuration of the deformable objects to be manipulated, thanks to the feedback provided by the sensory equipment. Moreover, specific tools, control algorithms, modeling and online identification techniques will be developed to manipulate DLOs, considering also the case of complex connection networks such as wiring harnesses composed by multiple branches.