Engineering Creativity Award: Sensor-Based Robotics and Autonomous Mobile Platforms

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This research project deals with sensor-based robotics and mobile platforms with as much flexibility built into the design of these systems as possible. The project involves three major areas: a dynamically balanced platform, a redundant manipulator (robot arm), and a general purpose end effector (robot hand). The base will be balanced on four independent legs each of these will be equipped with sensors to measure leg position, force exerted at each joint, and slipping relative to the ground. The platform will have position sensors to ensure that it remains reasonably level and balanced (including manipulator shifts). The robot arm will have eight degrees of freedom and have the ability to extend at the base and at the upper arm. The intent is to make the end effector as general as possible, however, imitating the human hand is excessively complex. As a minimum, the robot hand will have two opposable fingers which allows for manipulation of many objects and is easier to control than a five-fingered device. The hand must include a variety of sensors to measure applied force, slip, and object deformation.