I-Corps: Smart Robotics Assistants

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project involves improving the competitiveness of US manufacturers by enabling them to utilize robots on the high mix and low production volume applications. Use of robots on these manufacturing applications is expected to eliminate the need for humans to perform ergonomically challenging tasks and reduce the possibility of worker injury. The increased use of robots also is expected to reduce the need for touch labor and increase human productivity. This can be used to increase the production rate and reduce the order fulfillment time in applications where the availability of skilled human operators is limited. Robots are expected to improve the consistency and quality of the manufacturing operations. This reduces the need for rework and scrap. The use of robots in automating low-volume manufacturing challenging tasks will enable the human operators to focus on high-level decision making and the creative aspects of the tasks, while the robotic assistants will perform the low-level tedious tasks. This I-Corps project will leverage the software technology developed as part of NSF-funded research at the University of Southern California. The project team has developed planning algorithms and software that enable robots to program themselves from the task description. This includes path planning technology for tools, point-to-point trajectory planning technology for manipulators, path-constrained trajectory planning technology for manipulators, setup planning technologies for manipulators, integrated task and motion planning technologies for complex operations, vision and contact-based workpiece registration, self-directed learning technologies, and safe trajectory execution. Testing in the laboratory has demonstrated that the developed technology may reduce programming and work cell design time for robotic automation by a factor of ten. This project will focus on identifying the applications of the developed technologies, and determining the product-market fit for the developed software. 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.