Usage Scenario A – Service Robotics
Overall Description
The Service Robotics use case will involve several robotic platforms, like the open-source Robotics Operating System (ROS), which need to collaborate to scan a given warehouse and to assist humans in a logistics domain. The term Service Robotics is generally related to the use of robots to support operations done by humans and the logistics domain is one of the more interesting, for the presence of several tasks, where the robots can help the workers, making their tasks easier and safer. In example, they can cooperate to move a heavy object from one place to another. At the same time, robots involved in the scenario should scan the whole warehouse and update in real-time informative interfaces for the managers and the workers (e.g. warehouse‘s map), sharing the collected information. In addition, to the information related to the maps of the whole monitored area, the connected robots will also be equipped with a set of sensors, which will allow collecting interesting info, like room temperature, presence of humans or presence of obstacles in the robot-path. Since several robots collaborate to collect the information, they can keep the status of the area updated in real-time and balance the effort required among them. At the beginning, the robots are configured with some default information, like the map of the warehouse. Then, this information is updated in real-time, while the robots perform their main tasks. The demonstration use-case proposed will include both real-time collection of data and control of the included robots.
Particularly, the actuation of these robots will be an interesting test-bed for the platform, to demonstrate how the solutions developed by BRAIN-IoT allow to control remotely, in a standard way, the complex devices involved in this scenario.
Challenges
- Design and implement models for complex systems, like the robots involved in this scenario.
- Enable the collaboration of robots, also if integrated by several IoT platforms.
- Enable the actuation of robots, also through Machine Learning Control algorithms.
- Protect the data collected, the privacy of the users and the actuation mechanisms.
BRAIN-IoT Approach
The BRAIN-IoT solution enables the service robotics scenario, demonstrating how the tool-chain and marketplace developed by the project can be used to enable the cooperation of the different robots. In the envisioned scenario, the BRAIN-IoT toolkit will be leveraged to design and test all the aspects of the use case: the behaviours of the robots, the interactions with humans and the cooperation of involved robots, to do specific tasks. The use of the BRAIN-IoT toolkit will enable to limit the development of new ad-hoc software components, indeed, where possible, the solution will be based on open-source components and services already developed in other IoT platforms, provided to the developers through the BRAIN-IoT‘s marketplace and interconnected using the services and tools developed in the project.
This scenario described will involve also several security aspects. Mechanisms of encryption and authentication will be adopted in the whole final solution, to guarantee the protection of the data exchanged and of the users‘ privacy. To avoid inappropriate use of the robots by malicious users and to avoid possible incidents due to remote control (i.e. authorized workers that try to control the robots remotely, without a correct visual of what is happening in the warehouse), techniques of indoor localization, developed in other EU projects (i.e. SatiFactory or ebbits) will be used, to guarantee that only workers located in specific zones near the robots can control them. Furthermore, the solution will protect the privacy of users, anonymizing the data collected, in order to avoid sharing users‘ info, also if the data are stolen by malicious users.
