Partners involved: UNIPI, UNISI, Qbrobotics
Coordinator: Prof. Lucia Pallottino (UNIPI)
Outline: This sub-project is focused on automation of pharmaceutical process (e.g., product tracking and real-time monitorinf of interconnected process) and hospital logistics (which includes activities such as cleaning, disinfection, surveillance, transportation of materials, drugs, and patients, and many others).
Automation for Biopharma Productivity
Industry4.0 equivalent in the pharmaceutical processes focuses on methods to track products and to monitor in real-time interconnected processes to enable a truly agile and continuous delivery system where decisions are automatically planned based on collected data. Automation is then required to minimize errors and manual interventions while keeping the flexibility for adaptation to different manufacturing processes. Robots have already proved a fundamental impact in Industry4.0 and the possibility to reach the abovementioned requirements in pharmaceutical processes. Robots are highly flexible, cost- and energy-efficient, safe, and able to share environments with humans and work closely with them. The objective of UNIPI is to adapt and integrate such robots in the pharmaceutical environment by further developing dynamic manipulation capabilities also while collaborating with humans. The proposed manipulation systems will improve the process of drug manufacturing by handling both primary (e.g. syringes and infusion bags) and secondary packaging (e.g. folding boxes and cartons) and by supporting chemists’ work in ensuring repeatability and lowering the risk of contamination in cell culture processes. The manipulation system will have energy-efficient elastic actuators and will be able to work safely with humans in unknown, changing environments through advanced planning and control methodologies to improve efficiency while limiting associated risks. Dedicated end-effectors based on multi-synergistic, soft, and self-adaptive hands will be integrated to grasp and manipulate different objects in terms of weight, size, shape, softness, and texture.
Proof-of-concepts and prototypes of the integrated system (with necessary perception, planning and control methodologies) will be tested in reproduced pharmaceutical scenarios (TRL 6/7). Exploitation of the developed system will be conducted in collaboration with Qbrobotics that will also provide dedicated components.
Automation for smart hospitals
Hospital logistics involves activities such as cleaning, disinfection, surveillance, transportation of materials, medications and patients, guidance of visitors, and many others. Autonomous mobile robots can relieve operators in accomplishing such tasks in increasingly larger hospitals spread over large areas. This calls for the development of innovative models and techniques for localization, mapping, path planning and coordination of multi-agent systems performing complex tasks. The peculiarity of the hospital environment requires the devised solutions to be safe, robust, and able to adapt to dynamically changing settings. Moreover, mobile anthropomorphic robots can be used to assist patients reaching the desired office and hospital ward or to remotely connect family with patients in restricted areas, as it has been fundamental during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The difficulty of using these systems in hospitals lies in the necessity of sharing spaces with human beings. On one side, it is necessary to push the development of these devices to make them highly functional and adaptable to the varied conditions typical of hospitals (UNIPI and UNISI). On the other side, they can be remotely guided by operators to interact with patients, connecting them with medical doctors or family members (UNIPI). Accurate simulation models for crowd motion are required to handle tasks like people guidance, mobility services and evacuation (UNISI). Different types of mobile robots with dedicated tasks must be coordinated to optimize performance and guarantee safety (UNISI). Robotic platforms can also be integrated with smart sensor networks, to accomplish monitoring and surveillance tasks which are crucial in highly automated environments (UNISI) or ambient disinfection, such as against COVID-19 (SSSA).
Proof-of-concept systems and prototypes of small or medium-sized mobile base robots (2 or 4 wheels) will be integrated with sensors, control and computation units, navigation systems, interfaces for interacting with the user and remote guidance systems. These solutions will be tested in simulation and in real environments in various operating conditions to assess their robustness, safety, and autonomy (TRL6/7). Exploitation of the developed system will be conducted in collaboration with Proxima Robotics srl that will also provide dedicated components.
The subproject is comprises three activities:
- A9.3.a1 Development, integration, and validation of end effectors, perception and control sub-systems for manipulation in pharmaceutical processes
- A9.3.a2 Development, integration, and validation of navigations, control, and teleoperation systems for mobile autonomous platforms for smart hospital logistics
- A9.3.a3 Development and validation of models and techniques for localization, mapping, path planning and coordination of multi-agent systems for smart hospitals