II-NEW: A Robot for In Situ Research on Assistive Mobile Manipulation

在日常环境中自主操作物体的辅助机器人有可能改善老年人、伤者和残疾人的生活。尽管研究人员已经在实验室环境中证明了相关的能力，但目前的方法未经测试，可能不适合现实世界医疗环境的可变性。为了解决这一关键问题，由该奖项资助的新基础设施包括一个最先进的机器人（移动机械手），通过与医疗保健研究人员和提供者的合作，致力于在实验室之外进行研究。机器人在辅助机器人有望产生积极影响的环境中花费较长时间（驻留），包括残疾人之家，老年人辅助生活环境和临床设施。这些驻地使机器人研究人员能够通过识别和解决部署自主移动机械手用于医疗保健的障碍，最大限度地发挥其研究的影响。该基础设施支持的研究将产生辅助操作的新方法，并为柔性手臂控制、多模态感知和人机交互做出贡献。它还将开始定量表征现实世界医疗环境的可变性。这项研究的结果将通过学术出版物、网站、开源代码和公开发布机器人捕获的数据进行交流。该机器人还将在斯佩尔曼学院（一所面向女性的HBCU）实习，以促进科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育。

Assistive robots that autonomously manipulate objects within everyday settings have the potential to improve the lives of the elderly, injured, and disabled. Although researchers have demonstrated relevant capabilities within laboratory environments, current methods are untested and potentially unsuitable for the variability of real-world healthcare environments. In order to address this critical issue, the new infrastructure funded by this award consists of a state-of-the-art robot (a mobile manipulator) dedicated to research conducted outside of the lab via collaborations with healthcare researchers and providers. The robot spends extended periods of time (residencies) in environments where assistive robots are expected to make a positive impact, including the homes of persons with disabilities, assisted living environments for the elderly, and clinical facilities. These residencies enable robotics researchers to maximize the impact of their research by identifying and addressing the roadblocks to deployment of autonomous mobile manipulators for healthcare. The research supported by this infrastructure will result in new methods for assistive manipulation and contributions to compliant arm control, multi-modal perception, and human-robot interaction. It will also begin to quantitatively characterize the variability of real-world healthcare environments. Results of this research will be communicated via academic publications, a website, open source code, and publicly released data captured with the robot. The robot will also have residencies at Spelman College (an HBCU for women) to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.