Project Proposal

STAIRCASE - Robotic Arm Building Bricks Staircase

The goal of this project is to program a robotic arm to build a bricks staircase. The robot used will most likely be the FRANKA Emika robotic arm (nicknamed Panda) as it is more precise in positioning and grasping than DE NIRO. The outcome of the project will be demonstrated by performing a fully autonomous building of a staircase.

You can see what the robot looks like here: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/robot-intelligence/robots/franka-emika/

The project includes:

  1. Forward and Inverse Kinematics: To use the 7-dof kinematic model for Cartesian-to-Joint space mapping
  2. Redundancy Resolution: To resolve the 7-dof arm configuration while following a 6-dof hand pose trajectory
  3. Motion Planning: Using OMPL/MoveIt or other motion planning libraries to generate viable collision-free trajectories for executing the movements
  4. Motion Control: To tune a Cartesian impedance controller or other for fast and smooth motion of the arm
  5. Hand control: To control the grasping with the 2 fingers of the hand

Equipment: FRANKA Emika (Panda) and bricks.