NRI: Large: Collaborative Research: Human-robot Coordinated Manipulation and Transportation of Large Objects

由于人类和类人机器人的能力互补，本课题的目标是发展实现人-机器人协同操作和运输物体所需的科学技术。本研究旨在促进的关键概念是在最小通信下对人类活动的适应性，以及对环境中可变性和不确定性的鲁棒性，通过对可用信息的分层表示和刻意处理来实现。此外，本项目旨在最大限度地利用最少的传感器集来规划和控制机器人的动作，同时确保安全高效的协同运输。这项研究的具体体现是一个人形同事，在帮助一个人搬运物品时，它承担了大部分的负荷，而不需要过多的交流，也不需要人类事先的训练。通过在半结构化环境中引入人机物理协作的具体方法，该项目使机器人和人类之间产生独特的协同作用，从而有可能提高生产率，减少事故和伤害。在这样做的过程中，它还促进了机器人在建筑、制造业、物流和家庭服务方面的新实际应用的进步。通过为人形机器人和移动操纵器开发开源、可移植算法，这项工作为机器人领域的研究人员、开发人员、教育工作者和最终用户节省了成本和时间。最后，通过积极的教育和社区推广计划，并通过积极让K-12学生参与令人兴奋的RoboTech Fellows计划，该项目旨在增加多样性，吸引代表性不足的群体加入STEM。

Motivated by the complementary abilities of humans and humanoids, the objective of this proposal is to develop the science and technology necessary for realizing human-robot cooperative object manipulation and transportation. The key concepts that this research seeks to promote are adaptability to human activity under minimal communication, and robustness to variability and uncertainty in the environment, achieved through a layered representation and deliberate processing of the available information. Moreover, this project aims to make maximum use of a minimal set of sensors to plan and control the actions of the robot, while ensuring safe and efficient cooperative transportation. The embodiment of this research is a humanoid co-worker that bears most of the load, when helping a person to carry an object, without requiring excessive communication, or prior training on the part of the human.By introducing concrete methods for human-robot physical collaboration in semi-structured environments, this project enables a unique synergy between robots and humans that has the potential to increase productivity, and reduce accidents and injuries. In doing so, it also promotes the advancement of new practical applications of robots in construction, manufacturing, logistics, and home services. By developing open-source, portable algorithms for humanoid robots and mobile manipulators, this effort results in cost and time savings for researchers, developers, educators, and end-users in robotics. Finally, through an aggressive educational and community outreach plan, and by actively engaging K-12 students in an exciting RoboTech Fellows program, this project seeks to increase diversity and attract underrepresented groups to STEM.