Integration and Assessment of Multiple Mobile Manipulators in a Real-World Industrial Production Facility

This paper presents a large-scale research experiment carried out within the TAPAS 1 project, where multiple mobile manipulators were integrated and assessed in an industrial context. We consider an industrial scenario in which mobile manipulators naturally extend automation of logistic tasks towards assistive ones. In the experiment, we included tasks such as preparatory and post-processing work, e.g. pre-assembly or machine tending with inherent quality control. In the experiment, we deployed the two heterogeneous mobile manipulators Little Helper and omniRob in a production scenario at Grundfos A/S, a manufacturer of water circulation pumps, in Denmark. The experiment showed that mobile manipulation is at a level of technology readiness that will allow industrial application in the near future. Despite challenges indicated later in the paper, the research efforts presented do show that research is on the right track on transferring mobile manipulation from research to industry.