Imagine a robot that can assemble a functional product from the individual parts presented in any configuration to the robot. Designing such a robotic system is a complex problem which presents several open challenges. To bypass these challenges, the current generation of assembly systems is built with a lot of system integration effort to provide the structure and precision necessary for assembly. These systems are mostly responsible for part singulation, part kitting, and part detection, which is accomplished by intelligent system design. In this paper, we present autonomous assembly of a gear box with minimum requirements on structure. The assembly parts are randomly placed in a two-dimensional work environment for the robot. The proposed system makes use of several different manipulation skills such as sliding for grasping, in-hand manipulation, and insertion to assemble the gear box. All these tasks are run in a closed-loop fashion using vision, tactile, and Force-Torque (F/T) sensors. We perform extensive hardware experiments to show the robustness of the proposed methods as well as the overall system. See supplementary video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9M1DQ23OI.

翻译：设想一个机器人能够从任意摆放的单个零件中组装出功能完整的产品。设计这样的机器人系统是一个复杂问题，存在若干尚未解决的挑战。为规避这些挑战，当前装配系统通过大量系统集成工作来提供装配所需的结构与精度。这些系统主要通过智能系统设计实现零件分离、零件配套和零件检测功能。本文提出一种对结构要求极低的齿轮箱自主装配方案。装配零件被随机放置在机器人的二维工作环境中。所提出的系统利用多种不同的操作技能，如滑动抓取、手内操作和插入装配来完成齿轮箱组装。所有任务均通过视觉、触觉和力扭矩（F/T）传感器以闭环方式运行。我们进行了大量硬件实验，验证了所提方法及整体系统的鲁棒性。补充视频请访问：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9M1DQ23OI。