Semi-Autonomous Multi-Use Robot System and Method of Operation

• US 20120215354A1
• Filed: 10/27/2010
• Published: 08/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Battelle Memorial Institute
• Original Assignee: Battelle Memorial Institute
• Inventors: Newhouse, Scott A., Lastrapes, Timothy J., Krasny, Darren P., Shoaf, Richard L., Keip, Jeffrey D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,643,316 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/255
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1666 Avoiding collision or forbidden zones
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/40183 Tele-machining
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/40418 Presurgical planning, on screen indicate regions to be operated on
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/40424 Online motion planning, in real time, use vision to detect workspace changes

Abstract

A semi-autonomous robot system (10) that includes scanning and scanned data manipulation that is utilized for controlling remote operation of a robot system within an operating environment.

Claims

1. A robot system comprising:

a robot that includes an arm having multiple degrees of freedom of movement;

a movable carriage for carrying said robot;

a scanner mounted upon an end of said robot arm, said scanner operational to collect data regarding an operating environment surrounding said robot; and

an operator station located remotely from said robot arm, said operator station operable to control movement of said robot arm and said carriage.

2. The robot system according to claim 1 wherein said scanner is a laser device operable to gather said environmental data and further wherein said operator station includes a computer and associated software that is operable to use of a Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) motion planning algorithm in combination with said data gathered with said laser device to control movement of said robot arm and said carriage within an enclosed area.

3. The robot system according to claim 2 wherein said computer and associated software is operative to acquire geometrical data regarding the operating environment of said robot and further wherein computer and associated software is also operative to utilize said geometrical data to perform operations within said operating environment with virtual tooling.

4. The robot system according to claim 2 wherein said computer and associated software is operative to define surfaces within the operating environment of said robot.

5. The robot system according to claim 4 wherein said computer and associated hardware is operative to define paths within an enclosed space for efficiently moving said robot arm and said carriage to a selected point within said space while also avoiding collision with any of the operating environment surfaces defined by said data collected by said scanner.

6. The robot system according to claim 4 wherein said computer and associated hardware is operative to produce continuous trajectories for contour following by first finding a plurality of collision-free candidate solutions and then using standard pseudo-inverse Jacobian control methodology to compute required joint angles and rates to achieve a desired path for an end-effector while also maintaining the proper orientation and path speed.

7. The robot system according to claim 5 further including a digital camera mounted upon said robot arm and a display device, said digital camera and display device operational to provide a pictorial view of the robot operating environment as an aid to guiding movement of said robot.

8. The robot system according to claim 7 including a track upon which said carriage is mounted, said track operative to guide the movements of said carriage.

9. The robot system according to claim 8 wherein said robot arm is adapted to carry at least one tool.

10. The robot system according to claim 1 wherein said scanner is a laser device operable to gather said environmental data and further wherein said operator station includes a computer and associated software that is operable to voxelize said scanned data and to utilize said voxelized data to define surfaces within said robot operating environment and outer bounds of said robot and further wherein said computer and associated hardware is operative to utilize said voxelized data to define movements of said carriage and said robot arm within said environment that also avoid collisions between said carriage and said robot arm with said surfaces within said robot operating environment.

11. The robot system according to claim 10 further including multiple computing nodes connected by Ethernet, said nodes spawning multiple threads to determine potential paths for movement of said robot.

12. The robot system according to claim 11 including a track upon which said carriage is mounted, said track operative to guide the movements of said carriage.

13. The robot system according to claim 12 wherein said robot arm is adapted to carry at least one tool.

14. The robot system according to claim 13 wherein said robot operating environment defines a non-enclosed space.

15. The robot system according to claim 13 wherein said robot operating environment defines an enclosed space.

22. The robot system according to claim 10 wherein said scanner is a 3D scanning device operable to gather said environmental data.

23. The robot system according to claim 22 wherein said computer and associated hardware is operative to utilize said voxelized data to perform real-time collision checks between said robot arm and said environment and between said robot arm and itself to provide Cartesian control of said robot arm'"'"'s tool using an input device such as a joystick to command said robot in a tele-operated sense to operate within said robot operating environment.

24. The robot system according to claim 22 wherein the digital camera is used to create a pseudo-photorealistic 3D model by registering data from said camera with the scanned data from said 3D scanner.

16. A method for operating a robot system that comprises the steps of:

(a) providing a robot system that includes;

an arm having multiple degrees of freedom of movement;

a movable carriage for carrying the robot;

a scanner mounted upon an end of the robot arm; and

an operator station located remotely from the robot arm, the operator station operable to control movement of the robot arm and the carriage;

(b) collecting data regarding an operating environment surrounding said robot with the scanner;

(c) utilizing the scanned data to define surfaces within the robot operational environment;

(d) selecting a desired position for the robot within the operational environment;

(e) determining a path for moving the robot to the desired position selected in step (d) that avoids any collisions between the robot and the surfaces defied in step (c); and

(f) moving the robot carriage to the position selected in step (d) via the path determined in step (e).

17. The method according to claim 16 wherein the operator station provided in step (a) includes a display screen in communication with a mouse with the display screen displying a cursor controlled by the mouse and further wherein step (d) includes using the mouse to position a cursor upon the display screen at the desired position for the robot and then depressing a button on the mouse to notify the operator station of the desired position for the robot.

18. The method according to claim 16 wherein step (e) also includes determining a desired deployment of the robot arm to a desired position without incurring any collisions between the robot arm and the surfaces defined in step (c) and further wherein step (f) includes deploying the robot arm as determined in step (e).

19. The method according to claim 18 wherein the robot performs a desired operation once the carriage and robot arm have moved to the positions selected in step (d).

20. The method according to claim 19 wherein the data collected in step (b) is voxelized to define surfaces within the robot operating environment in step (c) and outer bounds of the robot and further wherein the computer and associated hardware is operative to utilize the voxelized data to determine the paths of the robot arm and the carriage in step (e).

21. The method according to claim 19 wherein the operator station includes a computer and associated software that is operable to use a Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) motion planning algorithm in combination with the data gathered with the scanner to control movement of the robot arm and the carriage within an enclosed area.

25. The method according to claim 17 wherein step (d) includes using the mouse to click and drag across the virtual geometry to create a region for robotic processing whereby a coverage trajectory is calculated to cause the robot'"'"'s tool to maintain a prescribed stand-off from the scanned surface while following the contour of said surface.

26. The method according to claim 17 wherein step (d) includes using an input device such as a joystick to command the robot'"'"'s tool in Cartesian space whereby collision checking is performed in real-time to prevent collisions between said robot, itself, and said environment.