MiRoR

MiRoR (Miniaturised Robotic systems for holistic in-situ Repair and maintenance works in restrained and hazardous environments) aims to develop a fundamentally novel concept of a Miniaturised Robotic Machine (Mini-RoboMach) system, that equipped with intelligence-driven and autonomous abilities, will be demonstrated for holistic in-situ repair and maintenance of large and/or intricate installations. 

MiRoR (Miniaturised Robotic systems for holistic in-situ Repair and maintenance works in restrained and hazardous environments) aims to develop a novel concept of a Miniaturised Robotic Machine (Mini-RoboMach) system that will be demonstrated for holistic in-situ repair and maintenance of large and intricate installations.

This will be done via the following research steps:

1. Develop a novel concept of Mini-RoboMach, with unique complementary miniature systems:

• novel “free-leg hexapod” for providing both “walking” and 6-axis processing capability;
• an original stiffness-controlled flexible-arm robot for enabling “snaking” and 6-axis light processing ability

The complementarily means that a hybrid configuration of Mini-RoboMach, i.e. “walk & snake-in” can be utilised.

2. Develop MiRoR intelligent controller with the following key abilities:

• Self-positioning: enable walk and/or snake navigations to/from work and calibration of end-effectors on required features;
• Reasoning: decide on methods of accessing the working area while learning from these experiences
• Planning: schedule task successions and optimise Mini-RoboMach path in reference to intervention on different places.
• Adaptation: modify the parameters of treatment procedures for developing a self-protection ability of Mini-RoboMach.

3. Develop a unique virtual test bench for the hardware (e.g. Mini-RoboMach) and software (intelligent controller) of MiRoR so that its robustness and capability can be pre-assessed and corrected before its effective utilisation. This will be the task of ICVR at ETH Zurich.

4. Demonstrate MiRoR by performing in-situ holistic repair/maintenance works on high investment, large and/or intricate industrial such as (power plants, aero-engines, construction/infrastructure, offshore platforms, etc).

MiRoR Newsletter

Link to the official MiRoR homepage

 

MiRoR is part of the EU Seventh Framework Programme under theme: Robots for automation of post-production and other auxiliary processes, collaborative project 284959