Robotic Autonomous Loco-Manipulation For Logistics In Industrial Plants

The machine tending in a productive plant typically requires the transport of material from a storage area to a productive area. The plant logistics phase is a part of the production process that is often performed manually, due to the technological challenges related to the manipulation of objects in constrained environments, such as the shelf of a warehouse. However, an effort for its automation is justified by the fact that for a human operator, this activity is fatiguing, not ergonomic, and with low added value. This paper proposes a control framework for the automation of plant logistics for an industrial case study, integrating navigation and object manipulation