Robotic Autonomous Trolley Collection with Progressive Perception and Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

Xiao，Anxing1; Luan，Hao1; Zhao，Ziqi1; Hong，Yue1; Zhao，Jieting1; Chen，Weinan1; Wang，Jiankun1; Meng，Max Q.H.1,2,3

10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9812455

2022

1050-4729

Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

4480-4486

Autonomous mobile manipulation robots that can collect trolleys are widely used to liberate human resources and fight epidemics. Most prior robotic trolley collection solutions only detect trolleys with 2D poses or are merely based on spe-cific marks and lack the formal design of planning algorithms. In this paper, we present a novel mobile manipulation system with applications in luggage trolley collection. The proposed system integrates a compact hardware design and a progressive perception and planning framework, enabling the system to efficiently and robustly collect trolleys in dynamic and complex environments. For perception, we first develop a 3D trolley detection method that combines object detection and keypoint estimation. Then, a docking process in a short distance is achieved with an accurate point cloud plane detection method and a novel manipulator design. On the planning side, we formulate the robot's motion planning under a nonlinear model predictive control framework with control barrier functions to improve obstacle avoidance capabilities while maintaining the target in the sensors' field of view at close distances. We demonstrate our design and framework by deploying the system on actual trolley collection tasks, and their effectiveness and robustness are experimentally validated. (Video 11Video demonstration: https://youtu.be/6SwjgGvRtno.)

First ; Corresponding

English

EI

National Natural Science Foundation of China[62103181];

20223312572024

Motion planning ; Nonlinear systems ; Object detection ; Predictive control systems ; Robot programming

Computer Programming:723.1 ; Data Processing and Image Processing:723.2 ; Control Systems:731.1 ; Robotics:731.5 ; Systems Science:961

2-s2.0-85136323066

Scopus

1.Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Robotics Perception and Intelligence,Dept. of Electron. and Elec. Eng. of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen,China
2.Department of Electronic Engineering,The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Hong Kong,Hong Kong
3.Shenzhen Research Institute of the Chinese University of Hong Kong,Shenzhen,China

Xiao，Anxing,Luan，Hao,Zhao，Ziqi,et al. Robotic Autonomous Trolley Collection with Progressive Perception and Nonlinear Model Predictive Control[C],2022:4480-4486.