CAREER: Stratified Motion Planning with Application to Robotic Manipulation

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This is the first year funding of a four year continuing award. The research plan of this CAREER award concerns basic theoretical and experimental research involving so-called stratified systems, which are systems subjected to temporally and spatially intermittent physical constraints. In particular, this research concerns the development of a new robotic manipulation control method that can analytically accommodate both rolling contact between the object and the manipulators (or fingers) as well as intermittent contact. For anthropomorphic systems, manipulation via intermittent contact is called "finger gaiting." The approach is to consider the generic differential geometry inherent in stratified systems and to couple this structure with general nonlinear control techniques which also utilize tools from differential geometry. This manipulation method will be general in that it will be formulated in sufficient mathematical generality so that it is independent of any particular surface parameterization of the object, any particular finger tip parameterizations, and the kinematics of the robotic fingers or manipulators. The educational component of this award includes the involvement of graduate as well as undergraduate students in these research efforts. A new multidisciplinary component of the undergraduate engineering curriculum in the PI's department will be developed which will consist of two courses, one devoted to general legal topics which affect engineering and engineering ethics and the other entirely to intellectual property. Finally, a local outreach program will be developed to enhance the education and enthusiasm of local school children in the area of robotics.