Description
MTRN4230 Robotics GROUP PROJECT
Problem description
One of the typical applications for robot arms is performing pick and place tasks in various industrial setups. It involves
- Detection of an object based on sensor information.
- Using proper gripper for a robot arm.
- Actuation of a robot arm towards the target and picking the object
- Moving to the pre-determined destination location to place the object
- Placing the object at the destination location
Many components of the above task are adjustable; and based on the type of the object or complexity of the environment, this task can be easy or difficult.
Let us consider an automated warehouse as pharmaceutical product distribution centre (DC) that has automated order and fulfilment systems. The pickers (people or technology used to pick items and collect them to fulfil the order) are robot arms programmed for the pick and place tasks. This warehouse as a modern DC ensures, small orders are processed as fast as possible and the next day delivery is guaranteed for their customers. These commitments make the warehouse very dependant to the automation. Robot pickers are part of warehouse control system (WCS).
Chemists, as the main customers, order the products in small amounts and the next day delivery ensures products are delivered to them on time. This encourages them to order less but more frequent. It reduces the cost of stock accumulation/maintenance and improves the diversity of the products on the shelves without losing serviceability.
How an order is fulfilled
Orders are not coming in bulk but in a smaller amount. So, it means DC needs to operate as a retailer but with a broad range of orders and huge numbers. With all the planning still order fulfilment / picking the products in small amounts and diverse profile is a challenge. The way the stock is maintained in the warehouse is done by warehouse management system (WMS). WMS uses various methods and algorithms to club products and pre-order bulk amounts of them to maintain and replenish the warehouse at the same time WMS ensures the customer orders can be fulfilled based on stock in hand, then the orders are sent to WCS for fulfilment.
One of the approaches WMS/WCS uses is: mixing products in one container to reduce waste of storage capacity i.e. mix tote with dividers. It means one container or tote can hold three products at the same time shown in Figure 1 and it is the responsibility of the picker to pick from a correct section within a tote based on the order details provided.
How to use Prepared ROS Kinetic Environment
If you want to avoid setting up your environment, you may start using the VM shared with you to speed up. Some of the main packages.
- Ros Kinetic [http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu]
- Catkin [http://docs.ros.org/melodic/api/catkin/html/user_guide/installation.html]
- MoveIt [https://moveit.ros.org/install/]
- Universal Robot [https://github.com/ros–industrial/universal_robot]
- Ur5_ROS-Gazebo [https://github.com/lihuang3/ur5_ROS–Gazebo]
What is ROS
| “The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of software libraries and tools that help you build robot applications. From drivers to state-of-the-art algorithms, and with powerful developer tools, ROS has what you need for your next robotics project. And it’s all open source.” [ros.org] |
Run the setup
| VirtualBox-5.2.22-126460-Win.exe |
How to import image in virtual box
| Username Javad Password 777 |
Install Virtual Box Guest Additions
See some actions
