Towards more Natural, Intelligent, and Effective Robotic Grasp and Manipulations

到目前为止，在工厂车间等受控和精确建模的环境中，机器人可以抓住巨大的物体，并以模糊的速度和准确的精度搬运它们。但是，在这样的环境之外，在自然环境中，我们认为理所当然的日常操作任务——即使是拿笔这样简单的事情——也会难倒最复杂的机器人。随着机器人越来越多地在日常人类环境中扮演功能性角色，我们需要它们能够有效地与人互动，为人工作，并在人周围工作。****这项研究的长期愿景是开发新的创新解决方案，使机器人能够通过抓取更自然地与环境和人类互动，速度、灵巧度和自主程度与人类相当。这一愿景具有巨大的实际价值。同时，它还涉及到设计、抓握的制定（抓握规划）、抓握的维护和操作对象（抓握控制），以及这些主题与人类抓握的认知和功能结构的交集。通过精心选择的短期目标来解决这些挑战，拟议的研究计划承诺提供新的解决方案，为实现其长期目标铺平道路。****目标1侧重于制定适用于更广泛的抓点的新抓点质量（GQ）措施。GQ措施的制定是一个重要的开放性问题。GQ度量是用于把握计划、把握评价和把握控制整个过程的主要工具。****目标2侧重于开发新的理论工具和使能技术，包括主动顺应（类似于人类肌肉僵硬）在抓取。基于主动遵从的新公式将使用比被动方法强大得多的算法，导致更自然、更稳健的掌握。****目标3开发新的控制算法，将手臂的控制和手的控制作为一个统一的问题，允许手和手臂更好的协调，避免否则的次优和不可行的解决方案。****拟议研究计划的一个重要组成部分是培养研究生和本科生水平的高素质人才。hqp接受的培训将为他们提供深入的知识和专业技能，最终使他们在当今的就业市场上具有竞争优势，并在未来取得专业成功。通过解决机器人抓取中的重要开放问题，拟议的研究计划将产生高质量的出版物和其他可衡量的影响，这对加拿大机器人行业非常重要。******

To date, in controlled and accurately modeled environments such as factory floors, robots grasp massive objects and carry them with blurring speed and unerring precision. But, outside of such settings and in natural environment, every day manipulation tasks that we take for granted-even as simple as fetching a pen-can stump the most sophisticated robots. As robots increasingly make their way into functional roles in everyday human environments, we need them to be able to interact and work effectively with, for, and around people.****The long-term vision of this research is to develop new and innovative solutions to empower robots to interact, through grasping, with their environment and humans more naturally, with speeds, dexterities, and degrees of autonomy that are comparable to their human counterparts. This vision is motivated by enormous practical values. At the same time, it entails difficult challenges related to the design, formulation of the grasp (grasp planning), maintaining the grasp and manipulating objects (grasp control), and the intersection of these topics with cognitive and functional structure of human grasping. By addressing some of these challenges through carefully selected short-term objectives, the proposed research program promises to deliver new solutions that pave the path towards enabling its long-term goal.****Objective 1 focuses on the formulation of new Grasp Quality (GQ) measures applicable to a wider range of grasps. The formulation of GQ measures is an important open problem. A GQ measure is the main tool used for the entire process of grasp planning, grasp evaluating, and grasp control.****Objective 2 focuses on developing new theoretical tools and enabling technologies to include active compliance (similar to human's muscle stiffening) in grasping. The new formulation based on active compliance will lead to more natural and robust grasp using algorithms that are substantially more powerful than passive approaches.****Objective 3 develops new control algorithms that treat the control of the arm and the control of the hand as a unified problem, allowing for better coordination of the hand and arm and avoiding otherwise sub-optimal and unfeasible solutions.****An important part of the proposed research program is the training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) both at graduate and undergraduate levels. The training received by the HQPs will provide them with in-depth knowledge and specialized expertise that ultimately lead to their competitive advantage in today's job market and their future professional success. By addressing important open problems in robotic grasping, the proposed research program will produce quality publications and other measurable impacts that are important to the Canadian robotic industry at large.******