Simulation-driven machine learning for robotics and automation

Abstract

Abstract Mass personalization—a megatrend in industrial manufacturing and production—requires fast adaptations of robotics and automation solutions to continually decreasing lot sizes. In this paper, the challenges of applying robot-based automation in a highly individualized production are highlighted. To face these challenges, a framework is proposed that combines latest machine learning (ML) techniques, like deep learning, with high-end physics simulation environments. ML is used for programming and parameterizing machines for a given production task with minimal human intervention. If the simulation environment realistically captures physical properties like forces or elasticity of the real world, it provides a high-quality data source for ML. In doing so, new tasks are mastered in simulation faster than in real-time, while at the same time existing tasks are executed. The functionality of the simulation-driven ML framework is demonstrated on an industrial use case.