Towards Measurement of Advanced Mobile Manipulator Performance for Assembly Applications

Summary

Publication Title: Towards Measurement of Advanced Mobile Manipulator Performance for Assembly Applications

Series Title: NIST Technical Notes

Personal Author: Bostelman, Roger.

Publication Number: NIST tech note; NIST TN; 2108

Date Issued: 2020

Subject: Mobile robots
Robot arm
Mobile manipulator
Optical tracking system
Reconfigurable mobile manipulator artifact (RMMA)
Ground truth

Government Author: Commerce Department, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) .

Category: Executive Agency Publications

SuDoc Class Number: C 13.

Abstract: Advanced mobile manipulators offer the manufacturing industry the potential of a highly adaptive system to perform precision assembly tasks in agile environments. Developing performance measurement capabilities for mobile manipulator systems will support the advancement of manipulator-vehicle coordination, precision, accuracy, and robustness. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a measurement methodology for advanced mobile manipulators, which are mobile robots with an onboard robot arm, each from a different manufacturer and with a different controller. The measurement methodology is designed to assess the performance of mobile manipulators for manufacturing applications such as assembly, where position and orientation accuracy are critically important. The proposed methodology used an artifact designed at NIST to simulate an assembly task station. An optical tracking system measured the location of the targets, the mobile base position and orientation, and the position of a manipulator end-of-arm tool. The experimental data collected, using three different system computers, were timestamped using local clocks synchronized via the NIST internal and local area networks to align the data streams. The mobile manipulator system, the experimental methodology, the data analysis, and the results of the measurement methodology uncertainty and mobile manipulator positioning uncertainty using the novel artifacts are described in this paper. For the system tested, the mobile manipulator detection of 2 mm diameter fiducials can be achieved after registration. With validation from the optical tracking system, the study demonstrated that the Reconfigurable Mobile Manipulator Artifact (RMMA) has potential for serving as a novel standalone, low-cost test method for measuring the positioning uncertainty of mobile manipulators within a measurement uncertainty of 2 mm.