Robot Mission Inventory for Heterogeneous Fleet Coordination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current robot management systems struggle to effectively coordinate missions among heterogeneous robot fleets, as they often rely on vendor-specific controllers and lack a generic method for creating sequences of commands, leading to inefficiencies and increased complexity in managing robots of different types and capabilities.
Innovation Solution
A robot management system that supports building robot missions based on a mission inventory, allowing for the identification of recorded mission files that achieve target goals and providing commands to robot devices, thereby enabling the management of a heterogeneous robot fleet using a robot-agnostic approach.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If vendor-specific controllers are used to manage robot fleets, then robot control functionality is achieved, but system complexity increases and adaptability to different robot types decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal mission file format that can be used across different robot types and vendors. The mission file contains task definitions, motion paths, and parameters that are interpreted by a standardized controller, enabling the same mission file to control various robot types (SCARA, Cartesian, Delta, etc.) without vendor-specific modifications.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a standardized controller as an intermediary layer between the mission file and the robot hardware. This controller translates generic mission instructions into robot-specific commands, eliminating the need for vendor-specific control logic while maintaining compatibility with different robot types through a unified interface.
2Productivity
If operator experience is relied upon to create mission sequences, then task execution effectiveness may improve, but management efficiency decreases and scalability is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables missions to be pre-defined and stored as reusable mission files containing complete task sequences, motion paths, and parameters. These pre-configured missions can be directly deployed to multiple robots without requiring operator intervention or customization, significantly improving management efficiency while ensuring consistent execution across the fleet.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent allows successful missions to be copied and reused across the robot fleet. Once a mission is validated on one robot, the same mission file can be replicated and executed on other robots of compatible types, eliminating the need for operators to manually recreate sequences and ensuring consistent task execution effectiveness across multiple devices.
3Reliability
If recorded mission files are used to achieve target goals, then task execution consistency improves, but flexibility to handle new tasks decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent structures mission files into modular segments including task definitions, motion paths, parameters, and sub-routines. This segmentation allows individual components to be modified or replaced without affecting the entire mission, enabling consistent execution of core tasks while allowing easy adaptation to new requirements by updating specific segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic mission loading where mission files can be updated and reloaded during operation. The standardized controller supports hot-swapping of mission files, allowing the robot fleet to adapt to new tasks by loading updated mission files without requiring physical reconfiguration or extensive programming, thus maintaining execution consistency while improving flexibility.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and robot management systems for building a robot mission are described, including: identifying one or more target tasks to be performed; identifying a recorded mission file based on the one or more target tasks, where identifying the recorded mission file includes identifying one or more recorded tasks of the recorded mission file that at least partially achieve a target goal associated with the one or more target tasks; and providing one or more commands to one or more robot devices in association with implementing the one or more recorded tasks, where implementing the one or more recorded tasks at least partially achieves the target goal.