4 ms·
This is an important point. Grasping itself isn't that difficult if you know the object and its orientation. It's a pre-configured action (grip here and here, m
by joshvm 9y ago
This is an important point. Grasping itself isn't that difficult if you know the object and its orientation. It's a pre-configured action (grip here and here, move, release). Ocado, a large online-only grocery store in the UK have a demo they show trade shows that uses a suction cup. They don't bother with a grasper, they just locate a big enough surface to latch onto and use that. That's considerably easier than picking things up using fingers and you can use fairly simple algorithms to detect planar surfaces.
The problems start when things are tightly packed. One object might be in the way of your gripper so you can't take the thing you want. What happens if you drop the object? Does your robot know how to move things aside to grab the item you want?
And on top of this you have the whole issue of detecting objects in a cluttered environment: this requires state of the art semantic segmentation, robust 3D vision that will work on non-cooperative targets and a classifier that can work with occlusions and huge numbers of objects reliably.
I think it's reasonable that some items can be scanned upon entry into the warehouse, e.g. on a laser triangulation turntable that also grabs a video as it rotates. With this sort of task you want to exploit as many priors as you can find. If you look at papers (and factories), you see a lot of tricks: objects on flat surfaces that make segmentation easier, small numbers of known objects, etc.
- wiz21c 9y ago>> The problems start when things are tightly packed. One object might be in the way of your gripper so you can't take the thing you want. Simple algorithm for that : Annoy (pun intended) towers :-)
- krapp 9y ago>I think it's reasonable that some items can be scanned upon entry into the warehouse, e.g. on a laser triangulation turntable that also grabs a video as it rotates If it could be done quickly enough with enough volume, maybe, but the constraint is that items have to be loaded off the truck, scanned and stowed into a bin (which makes them available for purchase on the site) as quickly as possible.
- joshvm 9y agoYou could have a conveyor system which would cover 5/6 directions without too much trouble, and it'd be fast enough for real-time capture. Or you could automate the most common purchases e.g. Amazon basics items, Kindles, electronics. They could even ask sellers to provide models or dimensions.
- amelius 9y ago> uses a suction cup I wonder how they pick up books using this method? Books are difficult because they appear to have hard surfaces on the side, which turn out to be not so hard and not suitable for gripping.
- joshvm 9y agoProbably not an issue for them, Ocado sell pretty much only food so it'd be for boxes/bags mostly. It's not been deployed yet though. I think they're also testing gripper robots for picking up larger items like bottle packs. Also books, unless they're shrink wrapped, have a tendency to open which I imagine would be a pain.
- sjg007 9y agoWell just sell Ebooks.