BMW Outfits Robots with Artificial Intelligence – Automation World

STR in Isaac Sim with dolly.

Building cars at BMW involves the handling of millions of parts flowing into a factory from more than 4,500 supplier sites. One factor increasing the factory logistics challenge for the BMW Group is the customizability offered by the company. With an average of 100 different options available, this translates into 99% of customer orders being unique to each customer.

Ultimately, the sheer volume of possible configurations became a challenge to BMW Group production in three fundamental areascomputing, logistics planning, and data analysis, said Jurgen Maidl, senior vice president of logistics for the BMW Group.

Nvidia Isaac robotics platform working in sync with robot.To better handle logistics within its factories, BMW now uses four types of material handling robots and a smart transport robot. These robots were developed using Nvidias Isaac robotics platform.

According to Nvidia, its Isaac software development kit provides these robots with neural networks capable of addressing perception, segmentation, and human pose estimation to perceive their environment, detect objects, navigate autonomously and move objects. These robots are trained both on real and synthetic data using Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) to render ray-traced machine parts in a variety of lighting and occlusion conditions to augment real data.

Hanns Huber of BMWHanns Huber, with BMW Groups Communications Production Network, explained how the five different types of robots the company outfitted with Nvidias technology support factory logistics in production operations.

He said that, after delivery to the plant, parts are transported to the assembly line in containers of various sizes. Stationary SplitBots take full plastic boxes from the pallet in the incoming goods area and place them on a conveyor system that transports the boxes to a warehouse. The SplitBot also makes sure the containers are lined up correctly for automated storage. Using Nvidias artificial intelligence, the SplitBot can detect and process up to 450 different containers.

Mobile PlaceBots unload tugger trains and place boxes loaded with goods on a shelf. These robots use Nvidias image recognition system to classify the small load carriers and determine the ideal grip point from the combined input of sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence. These technologies allow the PlaceBots to move autonomously in a predetermined area.

Another logistics robot, the PickBot has a robotic arm that it uses to collect various small parts from supply racks. Like the SplitBots, the PickBot uses Nvidias AI technology to calculate the right grip point.

The robotic manipulation arm of the SortBot takes empty boxes and puts them on a palette to be sent back to supplier area. These SortBots are deployed in series production to stack empty containers on pallets before they re-enter circulation.

BMWs autonomous Smart Transport Robots (STRs) can identify obstacles such as forklift trucks, as well as humans, to more accurately and quickly suggest alternative routes as needed. They can also learn from the environment and apply different responses to people and objects.

Huber noted that all of these robots have been developed by BMW in the past five years, with most being deployed and tested in BMW factories since 2019. The robots are trialed during our development process at various BMW plants in Germany, as well at our logistics laboratory in Munich, he explained.

The STR was developed by BMWs logistics innovation team together with Fraunhofer Institute Dortmund, Huber added.

STR Robot in BMW facility.BMWs work with Nvidia on this project began in 2019. A BMW Group team of engineers worked on implementing the Nvidia technology with the robots, Huber said. The complete implementation was done in-house at BMW. Two teams from both sidesBMW Group and Nvidiaworked closely to customize and adapt a suitable solution. The first STR with Nvidia technology was deployed as a proof-of-technology in our logistics laboratory in Munich in May 2020. The first productive test will go live by the forth quarter of 2020.

Nvidia notes that the real and synthetic data generated during the testing of these robots are used to train deep neural networks on Nvidias DGX AI infrastructure development systems. The robots are then continuously tested in Nvidias Isaac Sim simulators for navigation and manipulation development, operating on Nvidias Omniverse platform, where multiple BMW Group personnel in different geographies can all work in one simulated environment.

Huber said that, incorporating Nvidias AI technology into BMWs robots allows BMW to optimize our robotics and material flow, as well as take simulations in the planning process to a new level.

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BMW Outfits Robots with Artificial Intelligence - Automation World