CAREER: Haptic Interaction for Robotic Caregivers

对于身体残疾的人来说，与身体接触是许多最重要的护理任务的关键。在这些任务中，机器人对人类客户（护理接受者）身体施加的力是至关重要的。然而，机器人目前还不知道什么力适合于普通任务，什么力适合与客户身体的不同位置接触。在这个项目中，PI的目标是赋予辅助机器人在与人进行触觉互动时使用适当力量的能力。为此，他将捕捉并统计建模当一个人为他或她自己执行辅助任务或为另一个人提供照顾时所施加的力。他将使机器人能够智能地调节它们在执行辅助任务时所施加的力，这样所施加的力就可以与人与人之间的互动相媲美。他将使客户能够有效地控制机器人在辅助任务中施加的力。在整个研究过程中，PI将进行实验来验证相关假设：任务类型和工具相对于客户身体的姿势可以高度预测人类护理人员施加的力；当在人体模型上执行任务时，机器人将成功地模拟在人与人互动过程中观察到的力；当机器人对客户的身体施加力时，客户会更喜欢机器人使用任务知识和工具的姿势来解释用户命令，而不是恒定的映射。因为一个人执行日常生活活动（ADL）的能力高度预测了他或她独立生活的能力，所以这项工作将集中在四个具有代表性的ADL任务上，这些任务需要与客户的头部接触：给一个人喂酸奶，给一个人擦脸，给一个人梳头，用电动剃须刀给一个人剃须。项目成果将包括一个系统，该系统使Willow Garage的PR2机器人能够帮助有严重身体残疾的人完成这四项任务；PR2将在腕部安装力-扭矩传感器，配备专用工具，并在头部安装Kinect 3D传感器。更广泛的影响：这项研究将开始赋予机器人一种至关重要的“常识”形式，同时在人类最基本需求的背景下定量分析和合成触觉相互作用。当机器人开始与用户接触时，它也将导致更好地理解人机交互，并将有助于数据驱动的智能控制方法。PI将广泛发布并发布开源代码，这样这项工作就可以促进机器人的进步，使数百万人能够更独立地生活，拥有更高的生活质量。PI将直接让残疾人参与研究，并将通过参加RESNA会议和亚特兰大能力博览会等活动积极参与更广泛的社区。此外，他将把研究成果纳入他的生物力学课程和触觉研究生课程，然后将改编材料，使用可汗学院（http://www.khanacademy.org/）的方法和工具，向世界各地的人们传授这些主题和机器人技术。

Making contact with a person's body is critical to many of the most important caregiving tasks for people with physical disabilities. During these tasks, the forces applied by the robot to the body of the human client (care recipient) are of central importance. Yet robots are currently ignorant of what forces are appropriate for common tasks, and what forces are appropriate when making contact with different locations on the client's body. In this project, the PI's goal is to endow assistive robots with the ability to use appropriate forces when haptically interacting with people. To this end, he will capture and statistically model the forces applied when a person performs assistive tasks for him or herself, or provides care to another person. He will enable robots to intelligently regulate the forces they apply when performing assistive tasks, so that the applied forces are comparable to those used during human-human interactions. And he will enable clients to effectively control the forces applied by a robot during assistive tasks. Throughout the research, the PI will conduct experiments to test relevant hypotheses: That the type of task and the pose of the tool relative to the client's body are highly predictive of the force applied by a human caregiver; That when performing tasks on a mannequin, the robot will successfully emulate the forces observed during human-human interaction; That when the robot applies force to the client's body, the client will prefer that the robot use knowledge of the task and the pose of the tool to interpret user commands rather than a constant mapping. Because a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) is highly predictive of his or her ability to live independently, the work will focus on four representative ADL tasks that require contact with the client's head: feeding a person yogurt, wiping a person's face, brushing a person's hair, and shaving a person with an electric razor. Project outcomes will include a system that enables a PR2 robot from Willow Garage to assist people with severe physical disabilities with these four tasks; the PR2 will be modified to have force-torque sensors at its wrists, specialized tools, and a Kinect 3D sensor on its head.Broader Impacts: This research will begin to endow robots with a crucial form of "common sense" while quantitatively analyzing and synthesizing haptic interaction in the context of humans' most basic needs. It will also lead to a better understanding of human-robot interaction when the robot initiates contact with the user, and will contribute to data-driven methods for intelligent control. The PI will publish extensively and will release open source code, so that the work can catalyze progress towards robots that could empower millions of people to live more independently with a higher quality of life. The PI will directly involve people with disabilities in the research, and will actively engage the broader community by participating in events such as the RESNA conferences and the Atlanta Abilities Expo. In addition, he will incorporate research results in his biomechanics class and graduate course on haptics, and will then adapt the material to teach people around the world about these topics and robotics using the methods and tools of Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/).