Automation and robotics for the Space Exploration Initiative: Results from Project Outreach

A total of 52 submissions were received in the Automation and Robotics (A&R) area during Project Outreach. About half of the submissions (24) contained concepts that were judged to have high utility for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and were analyzed further by the robotics panel. These 24 submissions are analyzed here. Three types of robots were proposed in the high scoring submissions: structured task robots (STRs), teleoperated robots (TORs), and surface exploration robots. Several advanced TOR control interface technologies were proposed in the submissions. Many A&R concepts or potential standards were presented or alluded to by the submitters, but few specific technologies or systems were suggested

Robotic ubiquitous cognitive ecology for smart homes

Robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to perform complex tasks. While their potential makes them increasingly popular, one fundamental problem is how to make them both autonomous and adaptive, so as to reduce the amount of preparation, pre-programming and human supervision that they require in real world applications. The project RUBICON develops learning solutions which yield cheaper, adaptive and efficient coordination of robotic ecologies. The approach we pursue builds upon a unique combination of methods from cognitive robotics, machine learning, planning and agent- based control, and wireless sensor networks. This paper illustrates the innovations advanced by RUBICON in each of these fronts before describing how the resulting techniques have been integrated and applied to a smart home scenario. The resulting system is able to provide useful services and pro-actively assist the users in their activities. RUBICON learns through an incremental and progressive approach driven by the feed- back received from its own activities and from the user, while also self-organizing the manner in which it uses available sensors, actuators and other functional components in the process. This paper summarises some of the lessons learned by adopting such an approach and outlines promising directions for future work

An application of physical flexibility and software reconfigurability for the automation of battery module assembly

Batteries are a strategic technology to decarbonize conventional automotive powertrains and enable energy policy turnaround from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The demand for battery packs is rising, but they remain unable to compete with conventional technologies, primarily due to higher costs. Major sources of cost remain in manufacturing and assembly. These costs can be attributed to a need for high product quality, material handling complexity, uncertain and fluctuating production volumes, and an unpredictable breadth of product variants. This research paper applies the paradigms of flexibility from a mechanical engineering perspective, and reconfigurability from a software perspective to form a holistic, integrated manufacturing solution to better realize product variants. This allows manufacturers to de-risk investment as there is increased confidence that a facility can meet new requirements with reduced effort, and also shows how part of the vision of Industry 4.0 associated with the integration and exploitation of data can be fulfilled. A functional decomposition of battery packs is used to develop a foundational understanding of how changes in customer requirements can result in physical product changes. A Product, Process, and Resource (PPR) methodology is employed to link physical product characteristics to physical and logical characteristics of resources. This mapping is leveraged to enable the design of a gripper with focused flexibility by the Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb) at the Technical University of Munich, as it is acknowledged that mechanical changes are challenging to realize within industrial manufacturing facilities. Reconfigurability is realised through exploitation of data integration across the PPR domains, through the extension of the capabilities of a non-commercial virtual engineering toolset developed by the Automation Systems Group at the University of Warwick. The work shows an “end-to-end” approach that practically demonstrates the application of the flexibility and reconfigurability paradigms within an industrial engineering context

A Conceptual Framework for Adapation

We present a white-box conceptual framework for adaptation. We called it CODA, for COntrol Data Adaptation, since it is based on the notion of control data. CODA promotes a neat separation between application and adaptation logic through a clear identification of the set of data that is relevant for the latter. The framework provides an original perspective from which we survey a representative set of approaches to adaptation ranging from programming languages and paradigms, to computational models and architectural solutions

A Conceptual Framework for Adapation

This paper presents a white-box conceptual framework for adaptation that promotes a neat separation of the adaptation logic from the application logic through a clear identification of control data and their role in the adaptation logic. The framework provides an original perspective from which we survey archetypal approaches to (self-)adaptation ranging from programming languages and paradigms, to computational models, to engineering solutions

A Conceptual Framework for Adapation

This paper presents a white-box conceptual framework for adaptation that promotes a neat separation of the adaptation logic from the application logic through a clear identification of control data and their role in the adaptation logic. The framework provides an original perspective from which we survey archetypal approaches to (self-)adaptation ranging from programming languages and paradigms, to computational models, to engineering solutions