As many logistics scenarios have to deal with at least partially unstructured environments, the generic work on machine perception in unstructured environments is also well suited for this application domain. An example of a concrete application is the RobLog project in which autonomous unloading of containers was investigated.
Publications
The following publications by Constructor Robotics have appeared in the context of automation in logistics:
[13] M. Thosar, C. A. Mueller, G. Jäger, J. Schleiss, N. Pulugu, R. Mallikarjun, S. V. R. Jeevangekar, A. Birk, M. Pfingsthorn, and S. Zug, “From a Multi-modal Property Dataset to Robot-centric Conceptual Knowledge About Household Objects,” Frontiers in Robotics and AI, vol. 8, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.476084 [Open Access]
[1] N. Vaskevicius, K. Pathak, and A. Birk, “Fitting Superquadrics in Noisy, Partial Views from a Low-cost RGBD Sensor for Recognition and Localization of Sacks in Autonomous Unloading of Shipping Containers,” in IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Taipei, Taiwan, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1109/CoASE.2014.6899335 [Preprint PDF]
[2] M. Magnusson, N. Vaskevicius, T. Stoyanov, K. Pathak, and A. Birk, “Beyond Points: Evaluating Recent 3D Scan-Matching Algorithms,” in International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seattle, USA, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139703 [Preprint PDF]
[3] R.-G. Mihalyi, K. Pathak, N. Vaskevicius, T. Fromm, and A. Birk, “Robust 3D Object Modeling with a Low-Cost RGBD-Sensor and AR-Markers for Applications with Untrained End-Users,” Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), vol. 66, pp. 1-17, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2015.01.005 [Preprint PDF]
[4] T. Fromm and A. Birk, “Physics-Based Damage-Aware Manipulation Strategy Planning Using Scene Dynamics Anticipation,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2016.7759159 [Preprint PDF]
[5] C. A. Mueller and A. Birk, “Hierarchical Graph-Based Discovery of Non-Primitive-Shaped Objects in Unstructured Environments,” in International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Stockholm, Sweden, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487375 [Preprint PDF]
[6] T. Stoyanov, N. Vaskevicius, C. A. Mueller, T. Fromm, R. Krug, V. Tincani, R. Mojtahedzadeh, S. Kunaschk, R. M. Ernits, D. R. Canelhas, M. Bonilla, S. Schwertfeger, M. Bonini, H. Halfar, K. Pathak, M. Rohde, G. Fantoni, A. Bicchi, A. Birk, A. J. Lilienthal, and W. Echelmeyer, “No More Heavy Lifting: Robotic Solutions to the Container Unloading Problem,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM), vol. 23, pp. 94-106, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2016.2535098 [Preprint PDF]
[7] N. Vaskevicius, K. Pathak, and A. Birk, “Anticipation and Attention for Robust Object Recognition with RGBD-Data in an Industrial Application Scenario,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2016.7759445 [Preprint PDF]
[8] J. Winkler, F. Balint-Benczedi, N. Vaskevicius, T. Wiedemeyer, C. A. Mueller, T. Fromm, M. Beetz, and A. Birk, “Knowledge-Enabled Robotic Agents for Shelf Replenishment in Cluttered Retail Environments,” in International Confenference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), Singapore, 2016. [Preprint PDF]
[9] N. Vaskevicius, K. Pathak, and A. Birk, “Recognition and Localization of Sacks for Autonomous Container Unloading by Fitting Superquadrics in Noisy, Partial Views from a Low-cost RGBD Sensor,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 88, pp. 57-71, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-017-0540-7 [Preprint PDF]
[10] C. A. Mueller and A. Birk, “Conceptualization of Object Compositions Using Persistent Homology,” in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2018.8594516 [Preprint PDF]
[11] N. Vaskevicius and A. Birk, “Revisiting Superquadric Fitting: A numerically stable formulation,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 41, pp. 220-233, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.2017.2779493 [Preprint PDF]
[12] C. A. Mueller and A. Birk, “Visual Object Categorization Based on Hierarchical Shape Motifs Learned From Noisy Point Cloud Decompositions,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 97, pp. 313-338, 2020/02/01 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-019-01016-y [Preprint PDF]