Previous | 
Home
Section: Partnerships and Cooperations
European Initiatives
FP7 & H2020 Projects
GEM
-
Title: from GEometry to Motion, inverse modeling of complex mechanical structures
-
With the considerable advance of automatic image-based capture in Computer Vision and Computer Graphics these latest years, it becomes now affordable to acquire quickly and precisely the full 3D geometry of many mechanical objects featuring intricate shapes. Yet, while more and more geometrical data get collected and shared among the communities, there is currently very little study about how to infer the underlying mechanical properties of the captured objects merely from their geometrical configurations. The GEM challenge consists in developing a non-invasive method for inferring the mechanical properties of complex objects from a minimal set of geometrical poses, in order to predict their dynamics. In contrast to classical inverse reconstruction methods, my proposal is built upon the claim that 1/ the mere geometrical shape of physical objects reveals a lot about their underlying mechanical properties and 2/ this property can be fully leveraged for a wide range of objects featuring rich geometrical configurations, such as slender structures subject to frictional contact (e.g., folded cloth or twined filaments). To achieve this goal, we shall develop an original inverse modeling strategy based upon a/ the design of reduced and high-order discrete models for slender mechanical structures including rods, plates and shells, b/ a compact and well-posed mathematical formulation of our nonsmooth inverse problems, both in the static and dynamic cases, c/ the design of robust and efficient numerical tools for solving such complex problems, and d/ a thorough experimental validation of our methods relying on the most recent capturing tools. In addition to significant advances in fast image-based measurement of diverse mechanical materials stemming from physics, biology, or manufacturing, this research is expected in the long run to ease considerably the design of physically realistic virtual worlds, as well as to boost the creation of dynamic human doubles.
COMANOID
-
Title: Multi-contact Collaborative Humanoids in Aircraft Manufacturing
-
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.