Dual arm robot manipulator for grasping boxes of different dimensions in a logistics warehouse

Abstract

This paper presents a new motion controller for object manipulation in 6D-space with a dual-arm robot manipulator. Current industrial systems often consist of a single robot arm commanded through a teach pendant. These systems are unable to pick and place boxes with different dimensions due to the restrictive specifications of their end-effector, which is restrictive. Our work involves a dual-arm humanoid robot with two Universal Robots (UR10) arms and a torso (CROM) for manipulating big and/or heavy objects. The motion controller has been designed for coordinated manipulation according to the desired trajectory of the object. To prevent the objects from drifting and falling, an adaptive master/slave controller proposed for hybrid force-motion control is implemented using sensors located at the end-effectors. The different components (arms, torso, camera, force sensors...) of the system are controlled using ROS, which is an open-source meta-operating system distributed for research and development in robotics.