RIA: Developing Reflexes for Robots: Recovery from Mechanical Errors

9309189哈金斯今年是为期三年的连续奖项的第一年。人类擅长从身体上的故障中恢复过来：当我们在冰上滑倒、被电线绊倒或走错一步时，我们经常能抓住自己。我们有时可以抓住掉下来的物体，防止它破碎。我们并不总是能成功地从错误中恢复过来，但现在的机器人甚至很少尝试这样的行为。从错误中恢复的能力将使机器人能够在不可预测和无结构的环境中更稳健地运行。这项研究旨在为机器人提供几种简单的反射：绊倒反射使双腿机器人能够从跌倒中恢复过来，滑动反射使机器人能够穿过光滑的地板而不摔倒，接住反射使其能够中断坠落物体的坠落并防止其断裂。反射将在模拟和实验硬件上进行设计和测试。反射反应与大多数机器人控制算法不同，这是因为快速发展的动态系统的时间限制，以及因为需要对不连续的事件做出反应。这些性质使它成为探索控制的参数和策略选择问题的理想领域。这项工作将有助于为构建用于非结构化环境的有用的运输和操纵系统提供科学基础，并可能解释在生物系统中观察到的一些行为。

9309189 Hodgins This is the first year of a three-year continuing award. Humans are excellent at recovering from physical failures: we can often catch ourselves when we slip on ice, trip over an electric cord, or miss a step. We can sometimes catch a dropped object and prevent it from breaking. We are not always successful in recovering from errors but present-day robots rarely even attempt such behavior. An ability to recover from errors would allow robots to operate more robustly in unpredictable and unstructured environments. This research aims to provide robots with a few simple reflexes: a tripping reflex that will allow a legged robot to recover from a stumble, a slipping reflex that will allow it to cross a slippery floor without falling, and a catching reflex that will allow it to interrupt the fall of a dropped object and prevent it from breaking. The reflexes will be designed and tested in simulation and on experimental hardware. Reflex responses are unlike most robot control algorithms because of the time constraints of a rapidly evolving dynamic system and because of the need to respond to discontinuous events. These properties make this an ideal domain for exploring questions of parameterization and choice of strategies for control. This work will help to provide a scientific foundation upon which useful transportation and manipulation systems for unstructured environments may be constructed, and perhaps to explain some behaviors observed in biological systems.