1. Scope

Keywords

Rationale

Mobile manipulators have the potential to operate in a wide range of manufacturing applications that require alignment of the manipulator end-effector with a discrete number of points on the workpiece within a pre-defined tolerance. Examples of such manufacturing applications include, but are not limited to, drilling, welding, peg-in-hole insertion type assembly, such as riveting, and pick-and-place operations, such as machine tending (see Bostelman et al., 2014 for more manufacturing use case examples). Therefore, this practice describes a performance measurement procedure, suggested metrics, and recommended reporting practices for benchmarking the performance of a mobile manipulator in completing non-continuous discrete pose-constrained tasks. Recommendations on documentation practices for the mobile manipulator performance test configuration are also provided to: (1) contextualize the mobile manipulator performance with respect to the configuration during measurement, (2) identify the possible adjustable configuration parameters, (3) provide the proper context for mobile manipulator performance measurement or test results, or both, with respect to the test configuration, (4) provide basis of comparison for mobile manipulator performance measurement and/or test circumstances across different performance measurements/tests, and (5) allow a mobile manipulator performance measurement or test, or both, to be replicated. The practice is intended for use by mobile manipulator manufacturers, suppliers, integrators, and end-users in either laboratory or manufacturing environments. Other standards and/or future revisions to this standard may address: (1) continuous task performance, (2) performance measurement of more than one mobile manipulator (i.e., fleets), (3) mobile manipulator performance measurement in the presence of workpiece disturbances, and (4) performance measurement of mobile manipulators in completing tasks falling outside of the scope of discrete pose constrained tasks (e.g., sanding, painting, inspection, or additive manufacturing /construction). (5) performance measurement of mobile manipulators in the presence of dynamic end-effector payloads.