Closed-loop pallet manipulation in unstructured environments

This paper addresses the problem of autonomous manipulation of a priori unknown palletized cargo with a robotic lift truck (forklift). Specifically, we describe coupled perception and control algorithms that enable the vehicle to engage and place loaded pallets relative to locations on the ground or...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Walter, Matthew R., Karaman, Sertac, Frazzoli, Emilio, Teller, Seth
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers / Robotics Society of Japan 2011
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/63145
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0505-1400
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2225-7275
Description
Summary:This paper addresses the problem of autonomous manipulation of a priori unknown palletized cargo with a robotic lift truck (forklift). Specifically, we describe coupled perception and control algorithms that enable the vehicle to engage and place loaded pallets relative to locations on the ground or truck beds. Having little prior knowledge of the objects with which the vehicle is to interact, we present an estimation framework that utilizes a series of classifiers to infer the objects' structure and pose from individual LIDAR scans. The classifiers share a low-level shape estimation algorithm that uses linear programming to robustly segment input data into sets of weak candidate features. We present and analyze the performance of the segmentation method, and subsequently describe its role in our estimation algorithm. We then evaluate the performance of a motion controller that, given an estimate of a pallet's pose, is employed to safely engage each pallet. We conclude with a validation of our algorithms for a set of real-world pallet and truck interactions.