Impact-Aware Dual-Arm Manipulation: A Framework for Fast Package Handling

This article presents an impact-aware manipulation framework and its application to logistics, where the challenges related to the booming of e-commerce have increased the need for faster and more flexible package handling solutions. Particularly, the proposed impact-aware framework addresses the problem of swiftly grabbing and placing objects in depalletizing tasks with dual-arm robotic systems. Impact-aware robotics leverages intentional collisions to achieve dynamic interactions and thus has the potential to be faster and more energy efficient than the state of the art based on quasi-static interactions with objects or environments. The generation of desired impacts (contacts at a nonzero relative speed), generally avoided in classical robotics, brings multiple challenges encompassing the generation of robust motions, managing the impact with the object, dealing with the physical constraints of the robotic systems, contact state sensing, and simulation of contact behavior. To tackle these challenges, we developed, within the European Union (EU)-funded project Impact-Aware Manipulation (I.AM.), impact-aware technologies that yield an integrated impact-aware solution. The proposed framework exploits nonsmooth mechanics to provide robot‒object‒environment impact models; it uses dynamical systems (DSs) to generate nominal and contingency motions with intentional impacts; it leverages quadratic programming (QP)-based control to provide motion execution with the ability to enforce hardware and safety constraints; it employs internal state sensing that does not require an external force transducer; and, finally, it develops an impact simulation environment that can handle batch simulations. This article highlights the benefits of the proposed approach in terms of speed (a 29% decrease in average task time) and energy efficiency (a 35% decrease) through a systematic comparison between classical grabbing and impact-aware swift grabbing and tossing. In summary, our article underscores the transformative potential of impact-aware technologies in revolutionizing robotic logistics operations. An accompanying video is available at https:// youtu.be/0Tv-MxO0rG0.