Abstract
Manufacturing and production industries are increasingly turning to robots to carry out repetitive picking operations in an efficient manner. This paper focuses on tackling the novel challenge of automating the bin picking process for entangled objects, for which there is very little research. The chosen case study are sets of freely curved tubes, which are prone to occlusions and entanglement. The proposed algorithm builds a representation of the tubes as an ordered list of cylinders and joints using a point cloud acquired by a 3D scanner. This representation enables the detection of occlusions in the tubes. The solution also performs grasp planning and motion planning, by evaluating post-grasp trajectories via simulation using Gazebo and the ODE physics engine. A force/torque sensor is used to determine how many items were picked by a robot gripper and in which direction it should rotate to solve cases of entanglement. Real-life experiments with sets of PVC tubes and rubber radiator hoses showed that the robot was able to pick a single tube on the first try with success rates of 99% and 93%, respectively. This study indicates that using simulation for motion planning is a promising solution to deal with entangled objects.
Highlights
One problem faced by many industries is bin picking, where the goal consists of removing an item from a container with an open lid for further manipulation [1]
Despite the broad body of research on bin picking, very few works dealt with the specific case of entangled objects
This paper proposes an algorithm for robotic bin picking of tube-shaped objects that handles occlusion and entanglement, for which there is little research, as well as a set of key definitions to tackle this challenge
Summary
One problem faced by many industries is bin picking, where the goal consists of removing an item from a container with an open lid for further manipulation [1]. Despite the broad body of research on bin picking, very few works dealt with the specific case of entangled objects. Handling entangled objects is all the more challenging as multiple objects may be inadvertently picked at once, rather than a single one, which can cause disruptions in industrial lines. Examples include refrigeration tubes in the automotive and aircraft industries, water pipes for plumbing installations and heat pipes in civil engineering. In many of these use cases, the tubes contain multiple curvatures along their length.
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