Cognitive Systems & Robotics Laboratory

Advanced AI and RobotIcS for autonomous task pErformance ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀

Advanced AI and RobotIcS for autonomous task pErformance

The ARISE project aims to empower the automation of difficult manipulation tasks by introducing a combination of perception and control modules around a mobile robotic manipulator. ARISE will comprise key novel technology components that will significantly push the state of the art in terms of automatic task segmentation, human robot interaction and complex manipulation. Initially, two reconfigurable pneumatic-based robotic manipulators, mounted on a mobile robotic platform will be developed. The manipulators will have two novel soft end-effectors with variable stiffness that will allow for a diverse set of manipulation tasks. Additionally, a robotic perception module comprising 3D vision algorithms will be developed, as well as a localization and mapping module that will allow the robot to accurately identify its position within the environment. Alongside, a semantic mapping module powered by scene understanding algorithms will be developed. In parallel, a knowledge representation framework will be developed to obtain important information regarding objects’ properties and relationships. A hierarchical imitation learning framework will be constructed for acquiring robotic skills, in order to accomplish complex tasks directly from human demonstrators. Additionally, a Human-Interaction conditioned path and task planning module will be created to enable reactive robot control. Lastly, an edge-AI framework for deploying machine learning models and computer vision algorithms at the edge in a streamlined fashion. ARISE will implement its methods addressing the tasks of 5 uses cases, 3 of them in solar panel installation and maintenance and two in the harvesting and transplanting of hydroponic lettuce. The evaluation will take place in two different pilot sites (manufacturing solar panel racks and hydroponic lettuce facility farm) in two European countries (Greece, United Kingdom). ARISE’s ultimate goal is to implement a robotic platform that concentrates in two important areas, Energy and Agriculture, that can drive the European Green Deal progress.