NRI: Adaptive Teleoperation Interfaces for In-Home Assistive Robots

能够导航并与环境进行物理交互的移动机械手有可能 帮助有运动障碍的人独立开展日常生活活动。尽管如此 潜力巨大，可以安全部署在这些用户家中的机器人还不存在。直到 最近造成这一差距的关键原因之一是缺乏可用的硬件平台，但发行版 Of Stretch-一种新的低成本、重量轻、本质安全和高性能的移动机械手-具有 大大降低了家庭部署的障碍。第二个关键原因是健壮性的困难 自主性考虑到家庭环境的巨大差异。一个切实可行的近期解决方案是让 由用户远程操作的机器人，这也是目标群体中想要保持 控制机器人。然而，大多数现有的远程操作界面对于以下用户是不可访问的 运动受限，可能限制了输入。该项目旨在通过开发 支持移动设备的自适应可访问远程操作接口的新系统和算法 操纵者。能够适应这些用户的独特要求和偏好，同时 使机器人实现最安全、最高效的操作对我们提出的解决方案至关重要。 该项目涉及开发一种名为AccessTeleopKit的集成系统，该系统植入到 伸展机器人平台，并作为开源软件分享。自动运行的新算法 根据用户输入能力评估定制AccessTeleopKit中的界面，并自动化 远程操作机器人时，用户演示中常见任务的重复部分将是 发展起来的。贡献还包括概念框架，将远程操作接口表示为 具有有限状态机的用户输入和机器人控制输出之间的映射；以及启发式 评估具有不同能力的用户的遥操作接口的可访问性。评估将 包括用户研究和在五个家庭的机器人的多阶段长期部署，由 职业治疗师，并将贡献关于可用性、实用性和 接受家庭中的辅助机器人。职业治疗师应使用的新指南 实践中的遥控机器人也将被创造出来。

Mobile manipulators that can navigate and physically interact with their environment have the potential to assist people with motor limitations in carrying out activities of daily living independently. Despite this great potential, robots that can be safely deployed in the homes of these users do not yet exist. Until recently one of the key reasons for this gap was the lack of available hardware platforms, but the release of Stretch – a new low-cost, light-weight, inherently safe, and highly capable mobile manipulator – has greatly reduced the barrier to in-home deployments. A second key reason is the difficulty of robust autonomy given the vast variations across home environment. A practical, near-term solution is to have robots teleoperated by the user, which is also preferred by users in the target group who want to keep control over the robot. However, most existing teleoperations interfaces are not accessible to users with motor limitations who might have restricted input. This project aims to tackle this challenge by developing new systems and algorithms that enable adaptive accessible teleoperation interfaces for mobile manipulators. The ability to adapt to the unique requirements and preferences of these users while enabling the safest and most efficient operation of the robot is critical to our proposed solution. The project involves the development of an integrated system called AccessTeleopKit implanted on the Stretch robot platform, and shared as open-source software. New algorithms for automatically customizing interfaces in AccessTeleopKit based on user input ability assessment, and automating repetitive parts of common tasks from user demonstrations as they teleoperate the robot will be developed. Contributions also include conceptual frameworks to represent teleoperation interfaces as mappings between user inputs and robot control outputs with Finite State Machines; and the heuristically assessing the accessibility of a teleoperation interface for users with different abilities. Evaluation will involve user studies and multi-phase long-term deployments of the robots in five homes facilitated by occupational therapists and will contribute new empirical findings about the usability, utility, and acceptance of assistance robots in the home. New guidelines for occupational therapists to use teleoperated robots in their practice will also be created.