Physics-based manipulation planning and control for bin-picking applications

This project aims to develop planning and control algorithms, as well as robotic systems, to perform picking operations of items out of cluttered multi-object bins. While physics-based planning and control have been applied to the simpler domain of manipulation of objects on a flat surface such as a shelf or a table, the problem of reaching vertically into boxes and bins, e.g. in a warehouse setting, has not been investigated yet. This project will investigate trajectory optimisation, as well as sampling-based, approaches to planning and control in this domain. The main challenges of computationally efficiency and robustness to uncertainty will be evaluated. Developed algorithms will be relevant to many industrial applications, particularly warehouse order delivery picking and packing.