A Methodology for Approaching the Integration of Complex Robotics Systems: Illustration Through a Bimanual Manipulation Case Study

• Published in: IEEE robotics & automation magazine Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 88 - 100
• Main Authors: Triantafyllou, Pavlos, Afonso Rodrigues, Rafael, Chaikunsaeng, Sirapoab, Almeida, Diogo, Deacon, Graham, Konstantinova, Jelizaveta, Cotugno, Giuseppe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-06-2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Automation; Containers; Industrial applications; Industrial facilities; Methodology; Packaging; Robot sensing systems; Robotics; Robots; Service robots; Software engineering
• ISSN: 1070-9932; 1558-223X; 1558-223X
• DOI: 10.1109/MRA.2021.3064759

The multidisciplinarity of robotics creates a need for robust integration methodologies that can facilitate the adoption of state-of-the-art research components in an industrial application. Unfortunately, there are no clear, community-accepted guidelines or standards that define the integration of such components in a single robotic system. In this article, we propose a methodology that assesses the software components of a candidate system on the basis of the effort required to integrate them and the impact their integration will have on a target system. We demonstrate how this methodology can be applied using an industrial tool packing system as an example.