Autonomous wrench handling for Emergency Response Robots

This was my Master's thesis project at Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zürich. The aim of the project was composed from the problem statement of Challenge 2 in Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC). The aim was to develop an Autonomous wrench handling feature that could be easily adopted by ideally an Emergency Response Robot and also by any robot with compliant manipulator. The developed functionality facilitates the robot to

• Identify and locate a valve on a panel, and approach the valve stem

• Analyze the valve stem and select the appropriate tool to close the valve stem from a set of provided tools.

• Use the manipulator attached to the UGV to pick up the tool and operate the valve stem

The project involved

• Perception (object detection, estimation, tracking)

• Visual Servoing (vision based movement of the robot arm)

The devised solution ensured our robot's participation in MBZIRC and successful completion of the Challenge 2.

The following videos show autonomous wrench handling and valve turning operations by UR10 Robot.