Mobile Manipulator for Autonomous Localization, Grasping and Precise Placement of Construction Material in a Semi-structured Environment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a self-contained mobile manipulator capable of autonomous localization, grasping, and placement of construction materials in semi-structured environments, adaptable to indoor and outdoor conditions.

Contribution

The work presents a novel mobile manipulator system that operates independently without external positioning, integrating autonomous localization, grasping, and deployment for construction tasks.

Findings

System successfully operates in outdoor and indoor environments.

Achieved autonomous localization without external systems.

Enhanced perceptive range using cooperation with an autonomous drone.

Abstract

Mobile manipulators have the potential to revolutionize modern agriculture, logistics and manufacturing. In this work, we present the design of a ground-based mobile manipulator for automated structure assembly. The proposed system is capable of autonomous localization, grasping, transportation and deployment of construction material in a semi-structured environment. Special effort was put into making the system invariant to lighting changes, and not reliant on external positioning systems. Therefore, the presented system is self-contained and capable of operating in outdoor and indoor conditions alike. Finally, we present means to extend the perceptive radius of the vehicle by using it in cooperation with an autonomous drone, which provides aerial reconnaissance. Performance of the proposed system has been evaluated in a series of experiments conducted in real-world conditions.