RASCAL: Robotic Arm for Sherds and Ceramics Automated Locomotion

Deborah Wang, Brandon Lutz, Peter J. Cobb, Philip M. Dames

Abstract: Ceramics are one of the major sources of information about the past for archaeologists, with a typical archaeological dig unearthing 1000’s of pottery fragments (sherds) each day. However, archaeologists often are not allowed to remove these sherds from their home countries. Therefore, logging data (e.g., mass, color, decoration) in the field is the only way to record valuable information about these sherds. Currently, this laborious process is done manually, using up much of the valuable time at a dig site. This project aims to automate the data collection process, freeing up archaeologists to spend their limited time in the field on other tasks, and to create a large-scale digital database of sherd information, allowing archaeologists to take advantage of new computational tools to make discoveries. The contribution of this paper is an automated system, consisting of several reconfigurable data collection stations and a robotic arm to transport objects between stations, that can rapidly generate a large database of archaeological artifacts. We validate our system in simulation, using high-resolution models of sherds. In other contexts, our system may help to expand the use of automation in materials handling, parts sorting, and more.