Multiple lab ware manipulation in life science laboratories using mobile robots

Abstract

Mobile robots are widely used in different fields of automation such as material handling, domestic services, and objects transportation. This work presents a manipulation system for multiple labware in life science laboratories using the H20 mobile robots. In service robot applications, the recognition and pose estimation of the desired objects are very essential for manipulation tasks. The H20 robot has dual arms where each arm consists of 6 revolute joints with 6-DOF and 2-DOF grippers. The H20 robot is equipped with the Kinect V2 sensor to identify and estimate the position of the required labware on the workbench. The local features recognition based on SURF algorithm (Speeded-Up Robust Features) is used. The recognition process is performed for the labware to be grasped and for the workbench holder. A placing strategy is proposed to find the required holder and to check its emptiness. Different grippers and labware containers are designed to manipulate different weights of labware and to realize a safe transportation.