CAREER: Extending Human Dexterity Through Hand-Held Continuum Robots

该学院早期职业发展（Career）奖将通过提供与手持式连续体机器人相关的新知识，促进科学进步和促进国民健康。这样的机器人很有希望——特别是在敏感和受限的环境中导航——因为它们可以像使用手动工具一样实现工作流程，并且可以将直接人工操作的好处与机器人控制的精度和灵活性结合起来。然而，连续体机器人的复杂运动学特性，以及人与机器人之间的直接物理耦合，对如何实现操作者的精确和直观控制提出了挑战。该项目将研究不同的人-连续体机器人交互方法如何影响任务性能，并将有助于指导新的人-在环控制方法和连续体机器人设计的创建。该项目的成果有可能通过改变多个行业（包括医疗保健、检查和制造业）的任务绩效，产生重大的社会影响。该项目还将支持一项广泛的教育和推广计划，包括开发一种新的手持触觉设备，以及相关的动手实验活动，旨在促进基于问题的学习，这些学习将用于本科和研究生课程，以及为当地中学生举办的一系列研讨会，以增加对STEM的接触和兴奋。该项目的目标是确定不同的人类连续体机器人交互方法如何影响任务性能，并在手持同心管机器人和手持可操纵的藤蔓机器人的背景下测试这些方法。为了实现这一目标，研究将以三个主要目标进行。第一个目标侧重于开发估算和解释用户意图的方法，以实现手动和远程操作输入的无缝集成，以及量化这种集成对任务性能的影响。第二个目标是通过机器人形状的自动化控制和结合触觉反馈来改善机器人工具的实施。最后，第三个目标集中在评估通过前两个目标学习到的人类连续机器人交互原则在多个机器人平台上的适用程度。为此，一种新的手持式、可操纵的藤蔓机器人将被创造出来，并用于测试新方法的适用性。总的来说，这项研究将有助于推进柔性机器人和人机交互领域，使机器人能够直观地部署具有可控制形状的机器人，以便在受限环境中安全有效地完成任务。该项目由跨部门机器人基础研究项目支持，由工程（ENG）和计算机与信息科学与工程（CISE）联合管理和资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will serve to promote the progress of science and to advance national health by providing new knowledge related to hand-held continuum robots. Such robots are promising—particularly for navigation through sensitive and constrained environments—because they enable a workflow like using manual tools and can combine the benefits of direct human operation with the precision and dexterity of robotic control. However, the complex kinematics of continuum robots, along with the direct physical coupling of the human and robot, pose challenges for how to enable precise and intuitive control for operators. This project will investigate how different human-continuum robot interaction methods affect task performance, and insights will help guide the creation of new human-in-the-loop control methods and continuum robot designs. The outcomes of this project have potential for significant societal impact by transforming task performance in several industries, including healthcare, inspection, and manufacturing. This project will also support an extensive education and outreach plan that includes the development of a new hand-held haptic device along with related hands-on lab activities designed to promote problem-based learning that will be used in both undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as in a series of workshops for local middle school students to increase exposure and excitement for STEM.The objective of this project is to determine how different human-continuum robot interaction methods affect task performance and to test these approaches in the context of a hand-held concentric tube robot and a hand-held, steerable vine robot. To achieve this objective, the research will proceed with three main aims. The first aim focuses on developing methods for estimating and interpreting user intent to achieve seamless integration of manual and teleoperated input, as well as quantifying the effects of this integration on task performance. The second aim focuses on improving robotic tool embodiment through automating the control of the robot shape and through incorporating haptic feedback. Finally, the third aim centers on evaluating the extent to which the principles of human-continuum robot interaction learned through the first two aims hold across multiple robot platforms. For this purpose, a new hand-held, steerable vine robot will be created and used for testing the applicability of the new methods. Overall, this research will help advance the fields of flexible and soft robotics and human-robot interaction, enabling intuitive deployment of robots with shapes that can be controlled for safe and effective completion of tasks in constrained environments. This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.