Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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Robotics

Three collaborative Baxters under human guidance

Three Baxter Robots collaboratively holding a box with force control and move under the human guidance

Our robotic research has three main motivations:

- Manufacturing: material handling, assembly, inspection

- Space: satellite servicing

- Assistive: handicapped or elderly care.

We integrate various sensors, end effectors, and input devices with industrial robots to make them more easily programmable and able to perform sensor based operations.  We utilize outer (kinematic loop) control together with optimization-based velocity resolution to achieve a wide range of functionalities (from visual servoing to compliant force control). 

Research Theme: 
Motion

John Wen's Robotics Videos

See some sample videos below of our robotics projects. You may also wish to visit the YouTube channel directly.

Current Robotics Projects

Trajectory Tracking for Multiple Industrial Robots
dual ABB robot tracking

Industrial robots are increasingly deployed in applications requiring an end effector tool to closely track a specified path, such as in spraying and welding. Performance and productivity present possibly conflicting objectives: tracking accuracy, path speed, and speed uniformity. Industrial robots are programmed through motion primitives consisting of waypoints connected by pre-defined motion segments, with specified parameters such as path speed and blending zone.
Mobile Robot Team Manipulation of Large and Heavy Fabric Materials
Multi-Robot Caging

A swarm of five mobile robots of three different designs is successfully demonstrated. Operator bending, twisting, lifting and tugging motions associated with RF welding of large tent pieces are reduced by approximately 50%. Without any optimization and using prototype robots, the average material transport time for this operation is shown to already equal current manual cycle times. A Swarm Controller is demonstrated that enables control of individual holonomic or non-holonomic robots and control of a user-defined swarm configuration.
Space Robots for Satellite Repair
Baxter and Motoman
This project aims to develop technology and perform ground-based testing to support operations for potential satellite servicing missions and assist in utilizing these technologies for future space exploration activities. The focus of this work applies robotic technologies to enable robotic tasks to be performed at regions of space that are unreachable by human space exploration to date. This task will require the development of advanced robotic space technologies and engineering research needed to provide infrastructure to support the Goddard Space Flight Center Satellite Servicing Projects Division (SSPD) plans to service orbiting space assets.

Completed Robotics Projects

Human-Robot Teaming for Composite Ply Lay-up and Conforming

This project focuses on human-robot teaming for handling, placing, and conforming tasks. It combines control technologies and task planning, allowing a human-robot team to better manipulate large composite sheets. The process involves lifting, transporting, and completing the conforming process with the human-robot team interacting in an intuitive way to accomplish complex manufacturing tasks.
Fabric Fusing in Garment Manufacturing
Robotic Fabric Fusing

In this project we developed a robotic system with an electroadhesion robot gripper containing actuated pins to alleviate human operators from performing these repeated and laborious tasks in an uncomfortable manufacturing environment. This robotic system can reliably pick-up fabric pieces, place them without wrinkles, align them using machine vision, and feed the combined bundle through the conveyor belt into the fusing machine.
Open Source Teach Pendant Programming Environment:

Teach pendant is the most common method to operate, control, and program industrial robots today. Despite its prevalence, current teach pendants for industrial robots are vendor specific and do not usually work with additional sensor inputs such as machine vision and force/torque sensors. There are now widely available open-source robotics software performing complex tasks, ranging from motion planning to sensor guided motion. Unfortunately, these capabilities are not readily incorporated into teach pendant operations, unless the robot vendor chooses to take the initiative.
Robot Raconteur: an Interoperable Middleware for Robotics

This project aims to bridge a major gap in the current state of industrial robots: easy, rapid, and secure integration of robots, sensors, peripherals, and simulation software from multiple vendors and platforms. Our approach is based on Robot Raconteur (RR) which is an advanced augmented object-oriented middleware technology specifically designed to provide true plug-and-play interoperability capabilities for automation/robotics systems. The objective of this project is to increase the RR Technology Readiness Level to bring it from research environment to industrial usage.
Advanced Control for Robotics Surface Treatment

Surface treatment processes, including burnishing, deep rolling, shot peening, laser shock peening, and ultrasonic peening are commonly utilized to improve performance of a wide variety of commercial and aerospace products. Of all these methods, the deep rolling process is of interest because it can be customized according to part geometry and the required compressive residual stress profile that will enhance part fatigue life.  Due to the system rigidity, conventional machining/CNC platforms are utilized in current practice. The CNC systems are typically expensive with low throughput.
Robotic Assistant for Composites Manufacturing
Industrial Robot for Composites Panel Assembly
This project will develop an operator-guided semi-automatic assembly process using industrial robots integrated with multiple sensors. The goal of the project will be to improve manufacturing productivity by enhancing the operator’s capabilities though advanced robotics, and appropriately applying the technologies that capitalize on the strengths of the robotics (e.g. precise manipulation) and the operator (e.g. decision-making).
Assistive Robotics: Robot assistant for mobility challenged individuals
Jamboxx operation of Baxter-on-Wheel (BOW)
This project will develop effective robotic assistance for individuals with C4-C7 SCI for activities of daily living (ADL) such as house work or food preparation. The inability to perform ADL are major reasons that individuals with SCI and other disabilities move from living independently to intermediate care residences, because dedicated human help is expensive.