The assignment
The main focus of the R&D Robotics division is to develop working robotic proof-of-concepts up to TRL 7. All year round we have multiple vacancies for internships and graduation assignments. This document provides a summary of the current projects and assignments. Together with you we can tailor the assignment to match your learning goals and interests.
Our projects
Orchard Robot
Together with universities and partners in industry we are developing a robotic system for autonomous fruit picking and tree pruning, based on a cobot and 3D vision. Riwo focusses on the robot control, the object detection and the overall integration.
Fruit Packaging
Riwo is developing a vision system for precise and high speed fruit quality control and pose estimation. This system is placed in-line with a fruit handling system such as a packaging robot.
Pick & Place plants
For a local greenhouse Riwo is developing a pick&place system to pick pots with plants from a moving automatically guided vehicle (AGV) and place them into trays on a conveyor belt.
Waste Sorting
Together with the applied university Riwo is developing a waste sorting system for a local recycling company. To do this Riwo is developing a vision system in combination with robotic manipulators to sort various materials from the waste flow.
Autonomous vehicles
For our customers that make agricultural vehicles we want to improve driving in unstructured dirty environments, such as orchards or stables. For situations where guidance systems, such as the Riwo Navigation Antenna in combination with induction wire or RFID tags, are not possible we have to be able to drive based on other sensors. Therefore we would like to investigate sensor fusion, vision and SLAM.
Assignments
We are looking for new students who’d like to start on an assignment in Februari/March 2023. In all assignments you will learn to use C++ and ROS2 (Robotic Operating System). You will also get the chance to test your software with physical test setups. These are some examples of assignments that you may work on:
Visual odometry
Our test AGV currently uses wheel odometry, an IMU and the Riwo Navigation Antenna as sensor inputs. We would like to provide visual odometry from an RGB camera as additional input. The first goal to investigate is absolute positioning based on markers in the world. The second goal is to investigate visual flow for relative positioning.
Depth-based localisation
Same context as the previous assignment, but now we want to add a lidar or depth camera as sensory input. The first goal to investigate localisation in a mapped area based on a pointcloud. The second goal is to investigate simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM).
Autonomous calibration
For the systems involving both a camera and a robotic manipulator, it is important to properly calibrate the pose of the camera with respect to the robot. We already have a calibration algorithm to determine this by making the robot move to some preprogrammed poses, and then detecting where the camera is based on a visual marker. But we want to get rid of preprogrammed moves. The goal is to be able to execute a fully automatic calibration cycle, in which you give an initial guess for the position of the camera, and the robot will look where it can safely move with the marker in view and without hitting any obstacles.
Modular pick & Place
Pick&place movements don’t have to be programmed for every project, they can be configured. A previous student has set up this modular pick&placement library. The next step is to implement and test it for the current projects, such as the plant robot and the orchard robot.
Pear Simulation
At the fruit packaging line we need to determine the quality of the pear, based on many different aspects, such as curvature, length of the stem and bruises. To improve our classification, we would like to be able to generate simulated 3D pear with different qualities.
Process
All of our student assignments are all related to ongoing R&D projects, so your input may end up in a real product at one of our customers.
At our department we work in with the Agile/SCRUM workflow. At the start of you assignment you will write a problem description in your own words, to see if you clearly understand the goal of the assignment. Then for each 3-weekly sprint you write a sprint report where you discuss the process, implementation and results of the finished sprint and determine the functional requirements and planning for the upcoming sprint.
At the end of your assignment you will present your achievements to the company in the form of a presentation and demonstration.
In return we offer you:
- Possibility to tailor your own assignment
- A market-based internship fee
- Day-to-day technical supervision
- Working in a collegial and familiar environment
These competences will help you achieve the goal:
- Background in mechatronics / software / electrical engineering
- C++
- An independent, curious and creative attitude
- You like coding, but you also want to get some hands-on experience with a real setup