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Chemist Eye: A Visual Language Model-Powered System for Safety Monitoring and Robot Decision-Making in Self-Driving Laboratories

Created by
  • Haebom

Author

Francisco Munguia-Galeano, Zhengxue Zhou, Satheeshkumar Veeramani, Hatem Fakhruldeen, Louis Longley, Rob Clowes, Andrew I. Cooper

Outline

The integration of robotics and automation technologies in autonomous driving laboratories (SDLs) can pose additional safety challenges compared to traditional laboratories. This paper presents Chemist Eye, a distributed safety monitoring system designed to enhance situational awareness in SDLs. Chemist Eye integrates multiple stations equipped with RGB, depth, and infrared cameras to monitor for incidents, PPE compliance, and fire hazards. Through visual-language model (VLM)-based decision-making, it detects potential hazards, moves the mobile robot away from the hazard area, sounds an alarm, and provides immediate notification to laboratory personnel when necessary. Tests in a real-world SDL environment demonstrated safety hazard detection and decision-making performances of 97% and 95%, respectively.

Takeaways, Limitations

Takeaways:
A new system is presented to address safety issues in autonomous driving laboratories.
Implementing an effective safety monitoring and response system using visual-language models.
Validated high-accuracy risk detection and decision-making performance.
Contributes to preventing safety accidents through real-time monitoring and rapid response.
Limitations:
Additional testing is needed for various situations and exceptions in real-world environments.
Because of the high dependence on VLM performance, VLM limitations may affect system performance.
Potential difficulties in maintenance and management due to the complexity of the system.
Further research is needed to determine applicability and generalizability to various types of laboratory and robotic systems.
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