Framework for Facilitating the Setting-up of Robot Systems for Handling Deformable Objects

This thesis presents a tool for reducing the integration cost of robotic automation systems in industry. The main focus is on tasks where a robot has to handle deformable objects, where deformable objects refer to objects that change shape as they are handled, e.g. sponges or meat pieces. When designing robot systems, a huge challenge is the many days spent testing the systems before it is ready to be used. The approach presented here to speed up this process is to test the systems in simulation, rather than in the real world. A simulation is a virtual world in a computer, much like a video game, and if the robot solutions can be automatically tested here a lot of the man hours spent on testing in the real world can be reduced. Another advantage is that it can reduce the cost of hardware when building the test facilities since the test setup can be implemented in the virtual world purely from software. Besides allowing integrators to test in simulation, the overall tool also includes methods for simplifying the design process of the robot system. This is achieved through optimization, which tests many different robot systems in an automated way, in order to determine the most suitable robot system.