Mobile industrial robots in competition at ACHEMA 2024
Five world-class teams demonstrated the excellence of their solutions in the AIRA (Advanced Industrial Robotic Applications (aira-challenge.com)) final organized by INVITE together with BASF, Bayer, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Wacker. The aim was to demonstrate that these solutions can be used extremely flexibly and spontaneously for almost any task in real-life industrial environments.
From Monday morning to Friday afternoon, over 1000 guests attended the competition - often with the feedback “actually wanted to do more halls, but got stuck with your robotics competition”.
Introduction
Imagine two scenarios: A mobile robot carries out its routine activities - - like the ones we saw in the final of the AIRA Challenge at ACHEMA 2022: It inspects equipment inside and outside hazardous areas, uses stairs and takes samples. However, in the reality of everyday operations, the robot will also encounter unexpected situations - such as a forgotten bottle that is in the way of sampling. Or a locked door.
Second scenario: It's at night, at the weekend - only a few colleagues are working the night shift. Deep inside the labyrinth of pipes and corridors, there is an unexpected sensor message that requires their presence on site.
As part of the AIRA Challenge 2024, the teams showed how such situations can be solved in the future - without having to be planned and programmed in advance: An employee from the control room takes command of the robot. Equipped with advanced sensors and a versatile robotic arm, the robot is helped to find a solution in the first scenario, while in the second scenario the robot is used to assess the situation under the direction and responsibility of the employee and resolve it if possible.
More videos at:
AIRA2024 - Youtube playlist
Relevance of teleoperation confirmed
Sometimes it was difficult to understand why the robots moved “so slowly”... and “made mistakes” more often. However, where the concept of teleoperation was understood, the agreement was 100% every time: “ just” developing the “normal process” autonomously and being able to ignore deviations at first and handle them later via teleoperation sounds fantastic to everyone.
Spontaneous handling of deviations, e.g. the door moving on its own, is virtually impossible to handle autonomously, challenging and slow but always solvable via teleoperation
Gap confirmed:What is obviously still difficult today
Over the 5 days of the competition, it became clear that AIRA2024 was necessary to bring teleoperation into the focus of development:
1. teleoperated functions are today (2024) still significantly slower in execution than autonomous functions (as seen in AIRA 2022).
2. high stress factor for the operator
a. especially with necessary first-time performance
b. especially with WLAN latency and time pressure
3. none of the teleoperated mobile solutions could provide the operator with a “perfect” overview of the spatial situation (state of the environment and state of the robot) at all times
4. as is well known and in contrast to 5G, WLAN is not stable under high utilization, e.g. at a trade fair. Whether this is a relevant GAP from a teleoperation perspective in a real industrial environment would have to be tested under real conditions.
Great solutions
All in all, we saw many great solutions from the participating teams. For the further development of really convincing solutions, we would like to highlight some of the technologies we saw. These included:
a. Real Twin Arm (ETH) control
b. Control in virtual reality - Reply shone here in particular with a very relaxed operator at BuzzWire-Game.
c. Low latency in the 5G network relaxes the operator
d. All-in-one interface in the virtual control room relaxes the operator
e. Input devices: 6D mouse at Truphysics and FZI, good acceptance at GameController
f. In both cases, a lot of user experience leads to more relaxed control, little experience leads to stress
(controller not intuitive for unfamiliar users)
g. Screen-based large control room (FZI helps the operator to perceive all information/views at
h. Two arms provide clear advantage, e.g. when recasting (RolloMatic/Engrotec)
i. Spot platform has the highest quantities for “finished system with arm and gripper” - this maturity simplifies
the coordinated control of arm and platform enormously
j. Walking robots run through curves faster than wheel-based platforms - wheel-based platforms tend to drive
straight ahead, turn, and drive on...
Conclusion: Mobile teleoperation will be a game changer - the technology is almost ready
a. Navigation of platforms is generally “easily” possible via teleoperation, often already with “built-in” functions from
robotics manufacturers.
b. 3D control for mobile manipulation
I. Requires further research and development
II. Currently not available for purchase as a product. (for mobile robots, for non-mobile robotic systems there is
XR-GO from SRI)
c. Everyone agrees on the benefits of teleoperation for mobile robots, no one disagrees: if there was a solution,
it would be a game changer.
d. The most important prerequisites for high-performance and reliable teleoperation are
I. Immersive, intuitive, stress-reduced control by the operator
II. Reliable wireless with low latency
Link to fully autonomous mobile robotics: AIRA 2022
In 2022, the AIRA competition (https://www.invite-research.com/cooperations/open-innovation-challenge-2022/open-innovation-challenge-2022) focused on the autonomous execution of tasks in chemical plants.
ADDITONAL LINKS:
- AIRA Challenge 2024 | CHEManager (chemanager-online.com)
- https://www.chemanager-online.com/news/roboverse-reply-wird-bei-der-aira-challenge-2024-ausgezeichnet (AwardCeromony)
- Participating Teams
AIRA Challenge 2024 | CHEManager (chemanager-online.com) (EngroTec/RolloMatic)