NRI-Small: Collaborative Research: Addressing Clutter and Uncertainty for Robotic Manipulation in Human Environments

NRI-Small：协作研究：解决人类环境中机器人操作的混乱和不确定性

• 批准号: 1208479
• 负责人: Kevin Lynch
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-10-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1208479&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRI; Small; Collaborative; Research; Addressing

The long-term goal of this project is to develop personal robots that share a workspace with humans. To achieve the goal of personal robots in homes, the robots must adapt to the humans? living space, not vice-versa. Unfortunately, most human living spaces appear cluttered and unstructured to a robot. Much of this "clutter" is in fact structure, but structure for humans, not robots. The preliminary work proposed in this revised project addresses preliminary work in robot manipulation in the presence of clutter and uncertainty. The demonstrator task is a canonical example of human-robot coexistence: sharing a refrigerator. The robot must be able to extract specified items from a refrigerator that may also be accessed and altered by humans. We will develop the beginnings of a solution based on the following principles: such manipulation tasks can be solved by a hierarchical two-level planning strategy, consisting of a high-level metaplanner making use of low-level primitives; the low-level primitives should include push-grasping, sweeping, and other nonprehensile actions that take advantage of mechanics to manipulate cluttered environments when simple grasp-and-carry is impeded; and uncertainty in the state of the environment and its physical properties should be accounted for at both the metaplanner and primitive levels.Broader Impacts: Although not all outreach goals can be completed within the revised scope, cluttered tasks are critically important for an aging population of about 35 million people (one in eight) in the United States. Furthermore, graduate students involved in this project will benefit from an ongoing collaboration with TU Munich, a world leader in robot control and personal robotics. TUM, CMU, and Northwestern have a history of graduate student exchange and have agreed to host exchange students under this project. Undergraduates will participate in the research as REU students or in other capacities. Several recent undergraduates working in the labs at CMU and Northwestern have gone on to PhD study in robotics, some with NSF graduate fellowships. Graduate students on this project will participate in internships at the Museum of Science and Industry during its upcoming Robot Revolution exhibit. They will interact with the public and help develop a robot manipulation demonstration for the exhibit main stage. These students will provide technical expertise to the exhibit while benefitting from a valuable outreach experience. Other planned outreach activities include lab tours and talks at local high schools. Both PIs serve as mentors in research programs for underrepresented undergraduate students. These students would have an opportunity to work on state-of-the-art manipulation hardware as part of this project.

该项目的长期目标是开发与人类共享工作空间的个人机器人。为了实现房屋中个人机器人的目标，机器人必须适应人类？起居空间，而不是反面。不幸的是，大多数人类的生活空间似乎都混乱且无组织为机器人。实际上，大部分“混乱”是结构的，而是人类而不是机器人的结构。该修订的项目中提出的初步工作涉及在杂乱和不确定性存在下机器人操纵中的初步工作。演示者任务是人类机器人共存的规范示例：共享冰箱。机器人必须能够从冰箱中提取指定的物品，这些物品也可以被人类访问和改变。我们将根据以下原则开发解决方案的开始：可以通过分层的两级计划策略来解决此类操作任务，该策略由高级Metaplanner组成，利用低级原始词；低水平的原始词应包括抓紧，清扫和其他非骚扰动作，这些动作在阻碍简单的抓手和携带时利用力学来操纵混乱的环境；在Metaplanner和原始层面上应考虑环境状况及其物理特性的不确定性。BRODER的影响：尽管并非所有的外展目标都可以在修订后的范围内完成，但混乱的任务对于在美国的大约3500万人（一个八分之一的人口）至关重要。此外，参与该项目的研究生将受益于与机器人控制和个人机器人技术的全球领导者Tu慕尼黑的持续合作。 TUM，CMU和西北部有研究生交流的历史，并同意在此项目下接待交换学生。本科生将以REU学生或其他身份参加研究。最近在CMU和Northwestern的实验室工作的几位大学生已经从事机器人技术的博士学位研究，其中一些是NSF研究生奖学金的。该项目的研究生将在即将举行的机器人革命展览期间参加科学和工业博物馆的实习。他们将与公众互动，并帮助为展览主舞台开发机器人操纵演示。这些学生将为展览提供技术专长，同时从宝贵的外展经验中受益。其他计划的外展活动包括实验室旅行和当地高中的会谈。这两个PI都是代表性不足的本科生的研究计划的导师。作为该项目的一部分，这些学生将有机会从事最先进的操纵硬件。