Autonomous Mission with a Mobile Manipulator - A Solution to the MBZIRC

Abstract

This work presents the system and approach we employed to tackle thesecond challenge of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge(MBZIRC). The goal of this challenge is to find a tool panel on a field, pickan appropriate wrench from the panel, and operate a valve stem therewith. Forthis purpose we use a task-oriented field robot, based on Clearpath Husky with acustomized series elastic arm, that can be deployed for versatile purposes. However,to be competitive in a robotic challenge, further specialization and improvementsare necessary to achieve a certain task faster and more reliably. A high emphasis isput on designing a system that can operate fully autonomously and independentlyrespond if a subtask was not executed successfully. Moreover, the operator can easilymonitor the system through a graphical user interface and, if desired, interact with therobot. We present our algorithms to explore the field, detect the panel, and navigateto it. Furthermore, we use a support vector machine based object detection methodto locate the valve stem and wrenches on the panel for visual servoing. Finally, weshow the advantages of a force controllable manipulator to handle the valve stemwith a tool. This system demonstrated its applicability when fulfilling the entire taskfully autonomously during both trials of the Grand Challenge of the MBZIRC 2017.