This thesis focuses on robotic 3D vision for application in Bin Picking. The new method based on Conformal Geometric Algebra (CGA) is proposed and tested for identification of spheres in Pointclouds created with 3D scanner. The speed, precision and scalability of this method is compared to traditional descriptors based method. It is proved that CGA maintains the same precision as the traditional method in much shorter time. The CGA based approach seems promising for the use in the future of robotic 3D vision for identification and localization of spheres.

The master thesis deals with design of a robotic workcell for the operating of CNC lathe. The material input is realized by bin picking technology. The first part is an overview of related industries. Three variants of the workcell layout were created in the second part and the most suitable variant was selected. Selected variant is further elaborated, including 3D models of the workplace parts and drawings. The functionality of the designed workcell is checked by Siemens Process Simulate software simulation. The technical and economical evaluation is performed at the final part of the thesis.

This Diploma thesis deals with design of the drive and frame of the face and side picking unit of the Multitower storage system, and deals with their strength analysis. The first part of the thesis is the research part and deals with the picking unit´s conception, power options, drive solutions, carriage and safety elements. The thesis also deals with the solution of the wheel´s passive resistance, drive and brakes of both picking units. There are designed appropriate solutions on the basis of the results. The final part of the thesis contains the description of the picking unit structure and the strength analysis.

Studien är utförd på ATEA logistics med syftet att skapa förståelse för hur man kan kombinera två olika plockmetoder i materialförsörjningen. Målet med arbetet är att ta fram en modell som beslutsunderlag för hur denna kombination ska se ut med hjälp av kunskap angående påverkande faktorer. Resultatet är framtaget genom litteraturstudie kring plockmetoder samt egna mätningar och observationer på fallföretaget. Det konstaterades med hjälp av ett faktabaserat beslutsunderlag i form av jämförelsetider att man kunde spara upp till 295 sekunder på en given plockrunda hos fallföretaget. Det har då konstaterats att man med hjälp av kvantifierbara beslutsmodeller kan skapa kortare ledtider i materialförsörjningen med hjälp av en kombination av plockmetoder. / This report is a case study, which was conducted at ATEA Logistics AB. It’s purpose was to create understanding of how a combination of two picking methods can be used in materials supply. From this understanding the goal was to design a decision making model for when each of the methods is to be used. Literarry research, time studies, observations and interviews have been used to reach this goal. By calculating comparative times for each method, with the use of a factual decision making model, it was determined that the case company could save up to 295 seconds in a single picking round. From this result it was concluded that by using quantifiable and factual decision models, materials supply can be made more efficient by the use of a combination of picking methods.

[pt] Devido ao ambiente competitivo entre as empresas, as exigências por redução de custo e maior entrega de valor ao cliente são crescentes. Desta forma, o gerenciamento efetivo da cadeia de suprimentos é cada vez mais necessário. Um componente essencial desta cadeia é o estoque, que possui dentre outras funcionalidades o papel de concretizar o atendimento da demanda do cliente final. Para tal, faz-se presente ao longo da cadeia de suprimento do cliente, edificações destinadas ao posicionamento e manuseio de estoques denominadas armazéns ou centros de distribuição. Estas instalações possuem atividade dinâmica, destacando-se a operação de picking, que corresponde por 50 porcento a 75 porcento dos custos de operação do armazém. O picking é o processo de coletar de seus locais de armazenagem os itens necessários para o atendimento dos pedidos dos clientes. Esta operação tem sido bastante impactada pelas recentes tendências do varejo devido à demanda cada vez mais complexa, maior variedade de itens e menor frequência de reposição. Um exemplo deste modelo, pouco explorado pela literatura, é o suprimento de lojas de conveniência. A partir desta carência de estudos, este trabalho pretende desenvolver um guia de avaliação de armazéns voltados ao suprimento de lojas de conveniência. Para tal, foi elaborada uma revisão de escopo da operação de picking e um estudo de caso contemplando três armazéns de duas empresas brasileiras com o intuito de demonstrar suas principais similaridades e diferenças. / [en] Due to the competitive environment among companies, the demands for cost reduction and greater added value for the customer are increasing. Therefore, effective supply chain management is extremely necessary. An essential component of this chain is the inventory, which has, among other features, the role of fulfilling the demand to the final customer. In order to support this, buildings are designed for positioning and handling inventories; they re called warehouses or distribution centers and are present throughout the customer supply chain. These facilities have dynamic activity, especially the picking operation, which corresponds for 50 percent to 75 percent of the warehouse s operating costs. Picking is the process of collecting the items needed to fulfill customer orders from their storage locations. This operation has been greatly impacted by recent retail trends due to increasingly complex demand, a greater variety of items and less frequency of replacement. An example of this model, little explored in the literature, is the supply of convenience stores. Based on this lack of studies, this work intends to develop a guide for evaluating warehouses aimed at supplying convenience stores. To this end, a scope review of the picking operation and a case study covering three warehouses of two Brazilian companies were prepared in order to demonstrate their main similarities and differences.

This study sought to assess the effects of pairing a neutral stimulus with a reprimand contingent on occurrences of two topographies of problem behavior. Using a multiple baseline withdrawal with a nested multi-element design, contingencies were first applied to eye poking and, subsequently, to a second behavior, skin picking. In each case, the participant wore wristbands (a previously neutral stimulus) during treatment sessions. Results indicated that the reprimands were effective in decreasing both behaviors. In addition, when skin picking resulted in reprimands, eye poking also decreased. However, when reprimands were contingent on eye-poking, the effects did not appear to generalize to skin-picking. Some possible accounts for this asymmetrical pattern of generalization are discussed.

Logistik är den del av ett företag som påverkar företagets resultat på ett mycket betydande sätt. Kunden ställer krav på att få sin produkt levererad på en viss tidpunkt och om produkten då inte levereras på utsatt datum kan detta leda till en förlorad kund och därmed förlorade framtida inkomster. För att lyckas leverera till kund på utsatt tid krävs det att många processer fungerar väl ihop och att ett välplanerat system är implementerat. Denna rapport är skriven på ICA Sverige ABs centrallager i Kungälv och handlar om effektivisering. Mer specifik effektivisering av användningen av truckar. Genom att förkorta körsträckor och eliminera icke-värdeskapande körsträckor kan man få ett mer effektivt lager. Jag har samlat in relevant data så som genomsnittlig sträcka per order samt information om vilka lagergångar som är mest trafikerade för att veta vart i lagret som problemet finns och varför det uppstått. Zon-indelning är en metod som är känd för att minska körsträckor på ett lager. En implementering av metoden underlättas också av att ICA i dagsläget har sorterat artiklarna på ett sådant sätt att de första tio lagergångarna är fyllda med SRS-backar. Det är en metod som inte bara förkortar körsträckor utan och effektiviserar materialhantering. Teoridelen av arbetet görs för att får en större insikt i ämnen logistik samt för att hitta och benämna de metoder som påverkar logistiken i ett företag. Olika typer av materialhanteringsmetoder, lagringsmetoder, artikelplaceringsmetoder är exempel på vad som beskrivs djupare. Analysen har gjort för att analysera och koppla samman de teorier som använts till de problem som behandlas i rapporten men även reflektioner och tankar kring varför teorierna har använts. Rapporten har skrivits på ICA Sverige ABs centrallager i Kungälv och har koncentrerats till färskvaruavdelningen där problemet med långa körsträckor har uppkommit. / Logistics is that part of a company that affects the company’s efficiency in a considerable way. The customer has demands on the product to have it delivered on a specific date and if the product isn’t delivered on that date the consequences may result in a loss of a customer and therefore a loss of income. To be able to deliver the product on the specific date to the customer there’s a couple of processes that need to work flawlessly together and that a well worked out system is implemented. This report is written at ICA Sverige AB’s central warehouse is Kungälv, Sweden. It surrounds the subject of efficiency in warehousing and usage of lift trucks. Thru minimizing the driving distance of the lift trucks and eliminating not-value processes you can create a more efficient warehouse. I’ve gathered information regarding average distance per completed order and information regarding which of the warehouse aisles is the busiest to get an insight in where the problem is and why it has occurred. Zone-picking is a method that is known to minimize lift truck distances in a warehouse. An implementation of this method at ICA is facilitated by the fact that the articles already are sorted in a way that the first ten aisles are filled with plastic crates. It’s a method that not only minimizes the lift truck distances but also make the material handling more efficient. The theory part of the report is done to get a bigger insight in the subject of logistics but also to find and mention methods that affect the logistics in a company. Different types of material handling methods, storage methods and article placement methods are examples of methods describe. The analyzing part of the report has been done to connect mentioned theories to main problems that the report is surrounding but also includes reflections and thoughts about why the theories have been used. The report has been written at ICA Sverige AB’s central warehouse in Kungälv and has been focused on the fresh food compartment of the warehouse where problems with long distances for the lift trucks has occurred.

<p>Just how far is it possible to make learning of new parts for recognition and robot picking autonomous? This thesis initially gives the prerequisites for the steps in learning and calibration that are to be automated. Among these tasks are to select a suitable part model from numerous candidates with the help of a new part segmenter, as well as computing the spatial extent of this part, facilitating robotic collision handling. Other tasks are to analyze the part model in order to highlight correct and suitable edge segments for increasing pattern matching certainty, and to choose appropriate acceptance levels for pattern matching. Furthermore, tasks deal with simplifying camera calibration by analyzing the calibration pattern, as well as compensating for differences in perspective at great depth variations, by calculating the centre of perspective of the image. The image processing algorithms created in order to solve the tasks are described and evaluated thoroughly. This thesis shows that simplification of steps of learning and calibration, by the help of advanced image processing, really is possible.</p>

<p>This thesis presents methods useful in a bin picking application, such as detection and representation of local features, pose estimation and multi-cue integration.</p><p>The scene tensor is a representation of multiple line or edge segments and was first introduced by Nordberg in [30]. A method for estimating scene tensors from gray-scale images is presented. The method is based on orientation tensors, where the scene tensor can be estimated by correlations of the elements in the orientation tensor with a number of 1<em>D</em> filters. Mechanisms for analyzing the scene tensor are described and an algorithm for detecting interest points and estimating feature parameters is presented. It is shown that the algorithm works on a wide spectrum of images with good result.</p><p>Representations that are invariant with respect to a set of transformations are useful in many applications, such as pose estimation, tracking and wide baseline stereo. The scene tensor itself is not invariant and three different methods for implementing an invariant representation based on the scene tensor is presented. One is based on a non-linear transformation of the scene tensor and is invariant to perspective transformations. Two versions of a tensor doublet is presented, which is based on a geometry of two interest points and is invariant to translation, rotation and scaling. The tensor doublet is used in a framework for view centered pose estimation of 3<em>D</em> objects. It is shown that the pose estimation algorithm has good performance even though the object is occluded and has a different scale compared to the training situation.</p><p>An industrial implementation of a bin picking application have to cope with several different types of objects. All pose estimation algorithms use some kind of model and there is yet no model that can cope with all kinds of situations and objects. This thesis presents a method for integrating cues from several pose estimation algorithms for increasing the system stability. It is also shown that the same framework can also be used for increasing the accuracy of the system by using cues from several views of the object. An extensive test with several different objects, lighting conditions and backgrounds shows that multi-cue integration makes the system more robust and increases the accuracy.</p><p>Finally, a system for bin picking is presented, built from the previous parts of this thesis. An eye in hand setup is used with a standard industrial robot arm. It is shown that the system works for real bin-picking situations with a positioning error below 1 mm and an orientation error below 1^o degree for most of the different situations.</p> / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2005:15.

Graham Swifts novel Last Orders has yet to be viewed as containing carnivalesque elements as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World. Through the examination of Bakhtins theory of the carnivalesque and through a corresponding close reading of Last Orders, this article details the carnivalesque nature of the locations visited by the characters in the narrative, of the grotesque incidents that occur in these locations, and of the narrative style and structure of the novel itself.