NRI: Dexterous Manipulation Attained Using Task-Specific Admittance Realized with Variable Impedance Actuation

该项目为设计下一代机器人和智能机器人设备建立了良好的工程框架，可用于快速可靠地执行困难的操作任务。 该框架对于已经安装在制造工厂中的传统机器人和未来的“软机器人”都很有用，这将使人机协作变得安全。重点是约束的操作问题，如装配和维修任务，其中许多是枯燥，困难和危险的。研究结果将使机器人更有效地应用于服务、医疗保健、太空探索和制造等广泛领域。该项目产生了一种方法，使用由具有可控刚度的致动器驱动的运动学冗余臂，同时控制机器人的位置和弹性行为。 将证明机器人路径计划和准入计划的适当设计将确保容纳由操纵任务施加的约束，并且尽管存在不确定性（例如，门打开，装配正确完成）。 该研究计划的四个主要成果是：1）选择最佳操纵方案的一般程序（识别最佳运动和准入计划）使用数值程序来确保指定的操作任务快速、适当且可靠地进行，尽管存在不确定性，2）实现指定导纳计划的程序，包括使用具有可变阻抗致动的冗余串联机械手（具有可控刚度的串联弹性致动器），3）使用具有可变阻抗致动的冗余串联操纵器来验证操纵计划选择方法并验证总体操纵方法，以及4）具有相关联的最优操纵计划的受约束的一般任务类别的库。

This project establishes a sound engineering framework for designing next-generation robots and intelligent robotic devices that can be used to perform difficult manipulation tasks quickly and reliably. The framework is useful both for traditional robots already installed in manufacturing plants and future "soft robots" that will make human-robot collaboration safe. The focus is on constrained manipulation problems such as assembly and repair tasks, many of which are dull, difficult, and dangerous. The results will allow robots to be more effectively used in a wide range of domains such as service, healthcare, space exploration, and manufacturing.The project yields a means to simultaneously control both a robot's position and its elastic behavior using kinematically redundant arms driven by actuators with controllable stiffness. It will be demonstrated that proper design of the robot path plan and admittance plan will ensure that constraints imposed by manipulation tasks are accommodated and high-level task objectives are reliably satisfied despite uncertainies (e.g., the door is opened, the assembly is completed properly). The four planned major outcomes of this research program are: 1) general procedures for selecting the optimal manipulation plan (identifying the optimal motion and admittance plans) using numerical procedures to ensure that the specified manipulation task progresses quickly, appropriately, and reliably despite uncertainties, 2) procedures for realizing a specified admittance plan involving the use of a redundant serial manipulator with variable impedance actuation (a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness) at each joint, 3) a demonstration of improved robot dexterity in constrained manipulation tasks using redundant serial manipulators with variable impedance actuation to verify the manipulation plan selection methods and validate the overall manipulation approach, and 4) a library of constrained generic task categories with associated optimal manipulation plans.