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Section: Partnerships and Cooperations
European Initiatives
FP7 & H2020 Projects
FP7 Space RemoveDEBRIS
Participants : Aurélien Yol, Eric Marchand, François Chaumette.
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Partners: Surrey Satellite Technology (United Kingdom), Airbus (Toulouse, France and Bremen, Germany), Isis (Delft, The Netherlands), CSEM (Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
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Abstract: The goal of this project is to validate model-based tracking algorithms on images acquired during an actual space debris removal mission (see Section 7.1.2).
H2020 Comanoid
Participants : Don Joven Agravante, Giovanni Claudio, Souriya Trinh, Fabien Spindler, François Chaumette.
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Title: Multi-contact Collaborative Humanoids in Aircraft Manufacturing
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Partners: Airbus Group (France), DLR (Germany), Università Degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza (Italy), CNRS (I3S)
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COMANOID investigates the deployment of robotic solutions in well-identified Airbus airliner assembly operations that are laborious or tedious for human workers and for which access is impossible for wheeled or rail-ported robotic platforms. As a solution to these constraints a humanoid robot is proposed to achieve the described tasks in real-use cases provided by Airbus Group. At a first glance, a humanoid robotic solution appears extremely risky, since the operations to be conducted are in highly constrained aircraft cavities with non-uniform (cargo) structures. Furthermore, these tight spaces are to be shared with human workers. Recent developments, however, in multi-contact planning and control suggest that this is a much more plausible solution than current alternatives such as a manipulator mounted on multi-legged base. Indeed, if humanoid robots can efficiently exploit their surroundings in order to support themselves during motion and manipulation, they can ensure balance and stability, move in non-gaited (acyclic) ways through narrow passages, and also increase operational forces by creating closed-kinematic chains. Bipedal robots are well suited to narrow environments specifically because they are able to perform manipulation using only small support areas. Moreover, the stability benefits of multi-legged robots that have larger support areas are largely lost when the manipulator must be brought close, or even beyond, the support borders. COMANOID aims at assessing clearly how far the state-of-the-art stands from such novel technologies. In particular the project focuses on implementing a real-world humanoid robotics solution using the best of research and innovation. The main challenge will be to integrate current scientific and technological advances including multi-contact planning and control; advanced visual-haptic servoing; perception and localization; human-robot safety and the operational efficiency of cobotics solutions in airliner manufacturing.
H2020 Romans
Participants : Nicolò Pedemonte, Firas Abi Farraj, Fabien Spindler, François Chaumette, Paolo Robuffo Giordano.
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Title: Robotic Manipulation for Nuclear Sort and Segregation
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The RoMaNS (Robotic Manipulation for Nuclear Sort and Segregation) project will advance the state of the art in mixed autonomy for tele-manipulation, to solve a challenging and safety-critical “sort and segregate” industrial problem, driven by urgent market and societal needs. Cleaning up the past half century of nuclear waste, in the UK alone (mostly at the Sellafield site), represents the largest environmental remediation project in the whole of Europe. Most EU countries face related challenges. Nuclear waste must be “sorted and segregated”, so that low-level waste is placed in low-level storage containers, rather than occupying extremely expensive and resource intensive high-level storage containers and facilities. Many older nuclear sites (>60 years in UK) contain large numbers of legacy storage containers, some of which have contents of mixed contamination levels, and sometimes unknown contents. Several million of these legacy waste containers must now be cut open, investigated, and their contents sorted. This can only be done remotely using robots, because of the high levels of radioactive material. Current state-of-the-art practice in the industry, consists of simple tele-operation (e.g. by joystick or teach-pendant). Such an approach is not viable in the long-term, because it is prohibitively slow for processing the vast quantity of material required. The project will: 1) Develop novel hardware and software solutions for advanced bi-lateral master-slave tele-operation. 2) Develop advanced autonomy methods for highly adaptive automatic grasping and manipulation actions. 3) Combine autonomy and tele-operation methods using state-of-the-art understanding of mixed initiative planning, variable autonomy and shared control approaches. 4) Deliver a TRL 6 demonstration in an industrial plant-representative environment at the UK National Nuclear Lab Workington test facility.
Collaborations with European Partners
Participants : Fabien Spindler, Alexandre Krupa, François Chaumette.
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Project title: Innovative and Flexible Food Processing Technology in Norway
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Other partners: Nofima, Univ. of Stavanger, NMBU, NTNU (Norway), DTU (Denmark), KU Leuven (Belgium), and about 10 Norwegian companies.
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Abstract: This project is granted by the Norwegian Government. Its main objective is to develop novel concepts and methods for flexible and sustainable food processing in Norway. In the scope of this project, the Lagadic group is involved for visual tracking and visual servoing of generic and potentially deformable objects. Prof. Pal Johan from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), and Ekrem Misimi from Sintef spent a short visit in June and October respectively.