Projects

I4.0 CAPeX will establish a unique self-driving laboratory for P2X materials discovery, which accelerates the discovery process by fully integrating multiple scientific disciplines and techniques to transcend existing sequential and trial-and-error-based discovery approaches. The CAPeX approach will be capable of bridging the extensive separation in spatial and temporal scales between the fundamental processes controlling the electrochemical performance and the degradation processes that govern the durability, reliability, and economic viability of the P2X devices. In doing so, we can shorten the divide between fundamental breakthrough science and materials discovery bringing curiosity-driven strategic research to the proof-of-concept level.

This project will help building competences within manipulation of flexible objects and assembly of fragile objects. Therefore, we will develop software for modelling, simulation, estimation, and control of flexible objects. Also, our existing software on force control and peg-in-hole will be refined to ensure small contact forces. 

I4.0 CAPeX is a subproject of  “Pioneer Center for Accelerating P2X Materials Discovery”, funded by Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, the Danish National Research Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and the Villum Foundation.

Contact: Christoffer Sloth

Period: 20.12.2023 - 01.01.2027

Read more:  https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/sdurobotics/researchprojects/capex 

Continuum Robots (CRs), a type of snake-like robot known for their flexibility and adaptability, have become increasingly valuable in both industrial and medical applications. Their unique ability to navigate complex and constrained environments provides significant advantages over traditional rigid-link robots.

Thanks to the advantages of flexibility and miniature, CR possesses great potentials for inspection, repair and production within a constrained environment. One application can be PCB repair and workpiece inner cavity processing.

The I4.0 CONTINUUM project aims to explore a more complicated CR structure, where one CR or tool operates through the working channel of another CR, creating a nested structure. This design offers several advantages, such as enabling access to tight and constrained spaces while maintaining the robot's rigidity or allowing outer tube to provide enhanced vision functionalities.

The primary goals of this project are to develop a nested CR hardware platform and to achieve cooperative control for the nested CR system, enabling more efficient and automated operations in constrained environments.

Contact: Di Wu and Zhuoqi Cheng

Period: This project ends August 2026

I4.0 Bin-Picking (Developing Bin-Picking Solutions for Robotics) aims to develop and test bin-picking solutions employing computer vision. By utilizing computer vision for bin-picking, two main benefits can be obtained: shorter set-up time and faster run-time. The set-up time can be reduced as modifications only need to be made in the software, without hardware changes. The faster run-time can be achieved as the grasping operation can be performed directly in the bin, without any intermediate steps.  

In recent years, many new algorithms for object pose estimation have been developed at SDU, which have achieved state-of-the-art results on benchmarking datasets. The performance of vision sensors has also developed rapidly in recent years. By implementing the developed pose estimation algorithms with new sensors, the ability to solve bin-picking tasks can be evaluated. 

Currently, MMMI has not tested any modern high-end 3D sensors. This limits the application of current computer vision methods. To the best of our knowledge, the Zivid-2 camera is currently the best possible 3D sensor at an affordable price. Two sensors are tested to obtain a deeper understanding of current possibilities. 

Nevertheless, bin-picking is often a difficult task, and for some scenarios, pose estimation solutions cannot be created. The conventional approach uses pose estimation only if it can solve all tasks and is therefore often not considered a possibility.  

A new methodology is therefore proposed as an alternative to the conventional. As solving a task with computer vision is the most straightforward approach, this should be applied where possible. If a computer vision solution is not possible, alternative solutions should be used. Thus, even if computer vision cannot solve all scenarios, robotic set-ups can still gain from individual solutions. The success of such an approach is then entirely dependent on developing a strategy for determining which method to use.  

Contact: Frederik Hagelskjær

Period: This project is ending 31.12.2024 - extended into 2025

This I4.0 Digital Twin project aims to enable model-based robot controller design for in-contact applications. This will be accomplished by developing a high-fidelity robot simulation of a robot manipulator.  The project will take an outset in a UR5e manipulator but will develop general methodology that applies to all collaborative robots. In other research application areas like wind turbine control, high-fidelity models have used for many years for benchmarking and are considered to have a very small reality-gap. 

Contact: Christoffer Sloth

Period: Running until 31.12.2025

I4.0 Feeding - MADE FAST Feeding 

A big advantage of simulation and synthetic data is the ability to virtually design and experiment before physical construction. This is especially beneficial when it comes to part feeding automation equipment as setup time and effort to build and test is the common inhibitors to deploy this type of technology efficiently in industry. This is whether it involves configuring a vision system to handle a new part variant, designing a set of gripper fingers to properly grasp a part, or designing the right set of orienting mechanism for a vibratory part feeder to always deliver parts in a specific pose to the subsequent manipulation process. Linking these technologies together on a common platform will allow us to investigate their synergies and demonstrate a holistic system utilizing all these technologies to solve part feeding tasks more efficiently. The aim is to make part feeding technology more available to industry especially in situations where production rate is not high enough to make dedicated solutions economically feasible.

The project will deliver research into the development and realization of a new type of flexible feeder. This feeder will be based on a vibratory feeder and be designed to be modular and thus fast and easy to reconfigure. Its flexibility will be enabled by novel technologies developed in the project including simulation-based module design for mechanical orientation of parts as well as an easy to setup computer vision system for part pose classification to allow active rejection and recirculation. Furthermore, these technologies will be combined to enable a near autonomous design and commissioning of new part feeding solutions.

The project is directly linked with the research activities in MADE FAST 3.04. 

Contact: Simon Faarvang Mathiesen

Period: 01.08.2022 - 31.12.2024 and extended into 2025

Read more: This project is a subproject of MADE FAST, you can find more information about MADE FAST here.

Article (22.08.2023): ”Disruption” af en basisteknologi alle bruger: LEGO Group og Danfoss er begejstrede (only in Danish)

The I4.0 Fluently project will develop methods for assessing the human operator’s state e.g., trust, during the task operation. The methods will be implemented as behavior trees and tested in a number of experiments carried out in the SDU I4.0Lab. For the experimental work, a digital twin in Isaac sim will be established, which will give another dimensionality for the HRI. In addition to that we will also develop a pipeline for learning assembly task parameters, which can be used for online quality assessment of the assembly task. The method will consist of two phases, first: the learning phase – the system will explore and try to learn the assembly task in simulation. During this phase task data will be collected and used for training AI models, which can in the second phase, predict the quality of the assembly execution. The two methods will be integrated together and tested in an assembly and pick and place experiment.

Contact: Leon Bodenhagen

Period: The project ends 31.12.2025

Read more:  The project is  a subproject of the Fluently project under Horizon, find more information here.

The I4.0 GremRob project aims at, in cooperation with its sister project GremeOH under InnoMission2, developing methodologies and systems for efficient and reliable assembly of electrolyzer stacks from Green Hydrogen Systems. The stack components comprise both rigid and flexible parts, and hence the handling is challenging. We will use advanced gripper development, force based control and computer vision for ensuring efficiency and robustness. 

Project partners: SDU Robotics and SDU Mechanical Engineering

Contact: Aljaz Kramberger

Period: 01.08.2023 - 31.05.2025

Read more:  The project is  an activity supplementing the MissionGreenFuels project under InnoMission2. You can find more information about the InnoMissions here. 

I4.0 Human-Grasping enables robots to grasp and manipulate objects like humans do. If robots obtain human-like grasping and manipulation capabilities, then feeding systems, custom finger design, and vision‐based pin‐picking would be obsolete for low‐volume production. Thus, it is our hypothesis that the introduction of a universal gripper – a human‐like hand –will enable hyperflexible robotic assembly. We aim at demonstrating an assembly task consisting of the following steps:

• Grasping:  Grasping two objects from a table
• Classification: Classify the grasped object(s) based on tactile feedback
• In‐Hand Manipulation: Move object of interest to desired pose in‐hand
• Compliance Shaping: Shape the compliance of the part in‐hand to enable assembly

Contact: Christoffer Sloth

Period: The project is running until 31.12.2025 with a milestone at 30.09.2023

I4.0 Mac-T-Demonstrator - FERA: Machine Tending Demonstrator

Many manufacturing jobs are tied to machine tending. This is an example of a high mix / low volume automation task. Universal Robots (UR) is a Danish world leading producer of collaborative robots and together with partners provide complete solutions for automating machine tending. However, the current approaches involve several design steps and case by case programming. This machine tending demonstrator will help study together with UR how to reuse data from comparable but dissimilar setups to make design and programming of machine tending solutions easier.

The project is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD) and the methods used will follow the plan of the IFD FERA project. The IFD FERA project plans to use the SDU 4.0Lab for hosting the demonstrators and the developed software. The demonstrator will consist of a robotic cell with a mock-up of a CNC machine. We will use the data sets collected for different machine tending tasks to prepopulate the data infrastructure. The demonstrator will then show how the FERA software tools facilitate a faster and more efficient programming of machine tending.

Contact: Mikkel Baun Kjærgaard

Period:  The project ends 31.12.2027

I4.0 MFE – I4.0 MADE FAST Electronics

The I4.0 MADE FAST Electronics project aims at, in cooperation with its sister project MADE FAST Electronics, developing methodologies and systems for efficient assembly of through-hole components on printed circuit boards that allow for high mix low volume production of PCBs in Denmark. The three main focus areas are feeding (how to singulate the components to be inserted) from different packaging types, insertion (strategies to insert different components reliably into the PCB) and monitoring (ongoing process monitoring to detect faults that will lead to stopping conditions).

On the feeding side, the project works on improving existing bulk feeding mechanisms and integrating feeding technologies for more structured packaging styles (e.g., tube or tray) as well. We aim to develop two new vibration tray feeding mechanisms. Further investigations of force-based insertion, especially for more challenging components (e.g., snap lock, large/heavy components) are performed. For process monitoring, we are investigating different methods to evaluate the progress of the assembly process based on prior performance.

Project partners: The sister project MADE FAST Electronics is performed in cooperation with the following industrial partners: Paul E. Danchell A/S, Danfoss, LEGO, Terma A/S, Robot Nordic Aps, KUKA Nordic AB and Danish Technological Institute.

Contact: Dirk Kraft

Period: Running until 31.12.2024 - extended to 30.06.2025

Read more: MADE FAST Electronics is a subproject of MADE FAST, you can find more information about MADE FAST here.

The aim of this project is to develop advance technologies for development and manufacturing for small scale production of pharmaceutical devices.

The main development fields include, robot assembly, simulation, modeling and control, quality control, simulation-based development of mechanical tools, vision-based bin picking, software structures.

The development in this fields will strengthen the collaboration between academia and pharmaceutical industry, as well as pave the road for digital continuity in product development.

Project partners: Supported by Novo Nordisk and SDU I4.0Lab

Contact: Aljaz Kramberger

Period: This projects ends 31.12.2025

Although the processes of milling and pick/place have been studied extensively in academia and industry, there have been not many studies of how to deploy this for disassembly. This project Robotic Disassembly of Plastic Components (I4.0 RDPC) focused on the problem. The different disassembly processes are studied and how they can be facilitated by design. They will provide input to the execution of advanced disassembly processes, and it will be tested which of such processes can be programmed by PbD. Finally, we will deploy results from other projects to test bin, tray or table picking and if we can use vision/AI methods for adjusting for misalignments between e.g., screwdriver and screw. 

Project partners: SDU Robotics and SDU Innovation and Design Engineering

Contact: Henrik Gordon Petersen

Period: 01.01.2023 - 31.12.2025

Read more:  The project is  an activity supplementing the Design for Disassembly project under InnoMission4. You can find more information about the InnoMissions here. 

In this project, a safe and ergonomic teleoperation system will be developed to deal with challenging wind turbine blade maintenance tasks to reduce the maintenance cost and improve the safety of the working environment. The safety and ergonomics of a teleoperation system will be improved by using a combination of a kinesthetic and a cutaneous haptic device as a master device for commanding a remote robot in the teleoperation system. The human operator status during the teleoperation will be monitored and the robot behavior will be adapted to optimize the safety and ergonomics of the system. A physical emulator developed based on haptics and VR technologies in one previous I4.0 ASCERTAIN project will be used for effective operator training.

Contact: Cheng Fang

Period: 01.0.2023 - 28.02.2027

I4.0 Spatais – Grasping of unknown objects for trash sorting

The Spatais project deals with grasping (potentially for sorting) of unknown objects. It contains a vision component about detecting/localizing the objects on a conveyor belt, a component about development of grippers for this application and lastly a component that matches detected objects to gripper and suggests specific grasps. These developed technologies should be applicable for other challenges dealing with unknown objects as well.

Detecting and grasping unknown objects essentially corresponds to one-of-a-kind tasks, and hence is well-aligned with the vision to handle high-mix-low-volume tasks. The developed technologies can be used for industrial manufacturing tasks of detecting, grasping and placing objects where no CAD models are available. This encompasses form unstable objects which is well aligned with other activities in the I4.0Lab. Hence, the knowledge obtained in this project can be transferred to other I4.0 project activities, such as bin picking of form unstable objects.

The work on this is also funded through the SPATAIS project (https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/sdurobotics/researchprojects/spatais), which is funded through TRACE (https://trace.dk/), which is funded through the Innovation fund (https://innovationsfonden.dk/en)

Contact: Dirk Kraft

Period: Running until 31.12.2024, extended until 31.12.2025

I4.0 Teleoperation - Low-cost Robot for Teleoperation

The idea with the I4.0 Teleoperation project is to take an existing open-hardware/open-source robot teleoperation system, such as Gello, and implement both hardware and software improvements with two goals in mind:

First, to improve the general usability of the system, for instance by adding an initialization to the system whereby it automatically returns to a pose equivalent to that of the robot manipulator it is controlling (i.e., bilateral teleoperation). This can be implemented either mechanically or in the control loop.

Second, to bring the system more in line with the needs of use cases in the I4.0 Lab and SDU Robotics, for example by adding input scaling or haptic feedback by means of an admittance/impedance controller, allowing a user to “feel” the contact force measured by the robot or the force calculated by a simulation environment. The resulting system will enable us to provide teleoperated demonstrations – with haptic feedback – of assembly/disassembly skills in a simulation environment, allowing us to make use of a wider range of datasets for learning robot assembly/disassembly policies.

This project is related to two other external projects VP Disassembly and SimBotics.

Contact: Iñigo Iturrate

Period: 15.01. - 31.08.2025