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。为了实现家庭中的个人机器人的目标，机器人必须适应人类？生活空间，反之亦然。不幸的是，大多数人类生活空间对机器人来说都是杂乱和非结构化的。这些“杂乱”中的大部分实际上是结构，但结构是人类的，不是机器人的。在这个修订后的项目中提出的初步工作解决了在混乱和不确定性的存在下机器人操作的初步工作。演示任务是人机共存的典型例子：共用一台冰箱。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更改。我们将根据以下原则开发解决方案的开始：这样的操作任务可以通过分层的两级规划策略来解决，该策略由使用低级原语的高级元规划器组成;低级原语应该包括推抓、扫掠和其他非连续动作，这些动作在简单的抓拿受到阻碍时利用力学来操纵混乱的环境;和不确定性的状态下的环境和它的物理属性应占在两个元规划和primitive levels.Broader影响：虽然不是所有的外展目标都可以在修订后的范围内完成，杂乱的任务是至关重要的老龄化人口约3500万人（八分之一）在美国。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领域的世界领导者慕尼黑工业大学的持续合作。TUM，CMU和西北大学有研究生交流的历史，并同意在此项目下接待交换生。本科生将作为REU学生或其他身份参加研究。最近在CMU和西北大学实验室工作的几名本科生继续攻读机器人博士学位，其中一些人获得了NSF研究生奖学金。该项目的研究生将在科学与工业博物馆即将举行的机器人革命展览期间参加实习。他们将与公众互动，并帮助开发一个机器人操作演示展览的主要阶段。这些学生将为展览提供技术专业知识，同时受益于宝贵的推广经验。其他计划的推广活动包括实验室图尔斯参观和在当地高中的讲座。这两个PI作为导师在研究计划的代表性不足的本科生。作为该项目的一部分，这些学生将有机会在最先进的操纵硬件上工作。