Science of Design - Team
Project Summary
NSF STTR Components and Systems, CS6d. This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project entitled Robotic System for Visual Placement – RSVP seeks to advance the state-of-the-art in vision-enabled robotic arm technology. Current robotic arms of this type are expensive, selling for $30,000 –100,000. In Phase I we propose to develop a new perception/vision system for a robotic arm and a new software tool to design such embedded systems. In Phase II we propose to build upon advances in actuator technology, control theory and Phase I research to create an affordable yet robust highly-dexterous vision- enabled robotic arm for lightweight low-precision tasks that would sell for $5000. Tasks of this type include pick-and-place and sorting. Our U.S. and international business partners including the Sun Valley Floral Group, one of the world’s largest flower growers and Potveer B.V., one of the world’s leading floriculture equipment manufacturers, have estimated the market for this technology, in their sector alone, to be in excess of $50,000,000. Cognisense Labs Inc. and Humboldt State University (HSU) propose to create this new technology. This team has over 20 years of robotic, computer vision and software design experience and has won international awards for robotic landmine clearing and business planning.