Dynamic Environment Navigation and Pathplanning for Assistive Robots using Nonlinear Predictive Control

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This research project will provide solutions for specialized path planning and obstacle avoidance for a healthcare motivated mobile assistive robot. The proposed research is in collaboration with Crosswing Inc, who have developed a prototype assistive robot called VirtualME. This robot is designed to serve the elderly population by combining an autonomous monitoring platform with a sophisticated communication system. The goal of the VirtualME project is to help the elderly live more independently in their own surroundings with safety monitoring while simultaneously alleviating the strain of an aging population on the healthcare system. It is geared towards placement in a private home and is meant to interact autonomously with its environment and with a remote supervisor. A critical need for its success is the ability for it to move around an environment with a known structure, but unknown moving obstacles. Furthermore, it is critical that while in motion it can maintain maximal visual contact with the elderly person it is serving or with a specified object in it's environment. In addition, when potentially moving obstacles create a block to a given path, the robot must be capable of autonomously redirecting it's path to accomplish it's tasks. Currently the VirtualME is only capable of motion in a preprogrammed direction with fixed orientation and does not interact autonomously with its environment. The foundation for some predictive control path planning has been incorporated, but interaction with moving obstacles and in the path planning is not available. This research project will develop a nonlinear predictive controller to accomplish the path-planning and obstacle avoidance. This will give the VirtualME the ability to be placed into an environment with moving obstacles in a safe manner. Incorporating these features into the current VirtualME platform would be a major accomplishment, which will address a critical need for the continued development of Crosswing's mobile assistive technology. Deployment of the VirtualME robot for continued development cannot be accomplished until autonomous control in the described environments has been implemented.