IntelliMan

Artificial intelligence-driven robotic object handling system with persistent learning capabilities.

The aim of the IntelliMan project is to develop a robotic system for manipulating different elements with high performance and constant learning capabilities through a heterogeneous set of sensors, for advanced robotics, manufacturing and prosthetic services.

This system will be able to adapt to the characteristics of its environment and to decide how to execute a task autonomously, detecting flaws in its execution and requesting new knowledge through interaction.

Ensuring security and performance, IntelliMan’s advances range from learning manipulation skills to abstract descriptions of a handling task, or to discovering functionality of an object.

Eurecat participates in the project through its Robotics and Automation Unit, which develops Reinforcement Learning algorithms, methods for understanding and reasoning about task structures, and synthesis and manipulation algorithms.

Moreover, developed technologies will be evaluated on four use cases with different manipulation contexts:

1. 1. Upper limb control: Its purpose is to increase user acceptance and trustworthiness and enhance embodiment in the control of upper-limb prostheses.
   2. Daily life kitchen activities: lead by the Robotics and Automation Unit, focuses on the manipulation of everyday kitchen objects, which require various grasps and complex handling strategies, to setting and clearing a table.
   3. Robot-based flexible assembling of products: consists of assembling of connectors by intelligent manipulation of small, deformable objects (mainly cables) in interaction with hard objects (connector case) and precise interaction control for assembly correctness verification.
   4. Robotic fresh food handling for logistic applications:  aims at efficient pick and place of various vegetables and fruits, that are delicate and present different manipulation constraints.

In addition to Eurecat, the IntelliMan consortium is made up of the University of Bologna, the German Aerospace Center, the Friedrich-Alexander University of Nuremberg, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the University of Genoa, the “Luigi Vanvitelli” Campania University, The National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), ELVEZ, Ocado, the Bavarian Research Alliance (BayFOR), the IDIAP Research Institute and the University of Zurich.