Mo.Di.BOT: Mobile Diagnostic Robot
Subject: Service ROBOT for quality check in the realiability Laboratory of household Appliances
The innovation proposed in this project is to conceive diagnosis station and testing system, not as fixed but as flexible systems based on mobile robots equipped with mechatronic modules and diagnostic sensors. The robot will be interconnected with the production system in order to exchange data useful for controlling process and products, and to achieve the full integration of measurement processes with the rest of the production system.
The availability of advanced sensors on board of a mobile robot offers several advantages. The main one is an increased flexibility and adaptivity, achieved thanks to the ability of the robot to move even in a low structured environment and to reconfigure the measuring task depending on the type of product and its position.
In life test laboratories, the main advantage is that a mobile robot allows the sharing of sensors moving from one machine to another according to a serial sequence. This avoids replicating the same measuring instruments on the various stations operating in parallel in a test lab, and makes the strategy proposed competitive in relation to classical solutions, allowing the use of few measuring instruments but more complex in order to guarantee a high level of product quality.
The automation of measuring and diagnosis in production and in life test laboratories also pursues the objective of ensuring a high standard for repeatability and reproducibility of the tests. It is very important in a context where a large part of tests is performed by human operators, both in terms of technical improvement of the measurement process and in terms of avoiding repetitive and fatiguing occupations.
The mobile robot has to:
- move in front of the machines
- identify the machines
- acquire some quantities
- associate the measurements to the machine
- analyze the acquired data compared with reference values in order to check the behaviour of the machines
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Sensors positioned on the robot:
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The development of the Mobile Diagnostic Robot project is pursued through the following objectives:
- Development of a mobile robotic platform: The project involves the use of a mobile base capable of moving within a structured space. In order to improve the autonomy, reliability and efficiency, cognitive skills are enhanced through techniques to detect obstacles, sensor fusion, self-localization, map building and coordination.
- Development of sensors and measurement methods suitable for use on mobile robot: Appropriate sensors are developed so that the system can analyze the machines tested in the laboratory or along the production line through visual inspection, measurements of noise / vibration.
- Development of signal processing algorithms for diagnostic purposes: Algorithms are developed for the analysis and the classification of the measurements, and decision-making procedures are adopted to autonomously understand whether to proceed with additional measures, more specific than planned
Challenges:
- Navigation and perception in an unstructured environment
- Manipulation and physical interaction with the real world
- Human-Robot interaction
- Safety for operation near humans
- Fusion of multimodal sensor data and analysis
- Perception, categorisation, interpretation and decision making
Partners:
- AEA - Gruppo Loccioni
- Leaff Engineering
- SIA Srl
- Universita' Politecnica delle Marche
- Universita' degli Studi di Perugia
Leaff Contribution
Audio data acquisition procedures, DSP algorithms developing on embedded platforms (eg: background noise cancellation)
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