Vision-Guided Robotic Automation and Digital Twin Framework for Autonomous Experiments

Background
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratory located on Long Island, New York. BNL aims to enhance the autonomy of future synchrotron beamlines to improve efficiency, safety, and remote accessibility. This contract is intended to develop a vision-guided robotic automation platform integrated with a digital twin and robotic simulation framework for autonomous experiments.

Work Details
The project involves the following tasks:

1. Computer Vision Systems for Laboratory and Beamline Environments:
- Deploy stereo camera systems in both laboratory and beamline environments.
- Develop 3D perception pipelines for reconstructing workspace geometry and detecting experimental components.
- Implement deep-learning-based object detection, classification, and pose estimation for sample holders, detectors, robotic tools, and environmental fixtures.
- Quantify perception uncertainty and propagate it to downstream robotic planning and safety evaluation.

2. Digital Twin Development:
- Develop a digital twin representing robotic kinematics and workspace geometry, beamline-relevant experimental components, and mock beamline hardware in the laboratory environment.
- Synchronize real-time perception data from stereo cameras with the digital twin to maintain an updated representation of the physical environment.
- Use the digital twin to visualize and analyze robotic operations and experimental configurations.

3. Robotic Simulation and Predictive Evaluation Framework:
- Develop a robotic simulation environment mirroring the laboratory and beamline setups.
- Integrate robot kinematic models, environment geometry, and perception-derived object poses into the simulation.
- Implement pre-execution evaluation of robotic trajectories including reachability analysis, collision prediction, clearance margin estimation, joint limit detection, and singularity detection.

Period of Performance
The anticipated timeline includes hardware system setup within the first 2 months, commissioning for QAS beamline in months 3-5, commissioning for TES beamline in months 6-9, followed by optimization of algorithms based on commissioning results in months 9-12.

Place of Performance
The work will be performed at Brookhaven National Laboratory located on Long Island, New York.

Bidder Requirements
Interested parties must be registered prior to submitting their quotes.