II-NEW: A Robot Testbed for Real-Time Motion Strategies and Autonomous Personal Assistants

这项基础设施提案支持收购一个个人机器人和一个高端多GPU工作站，以开发一个新的机器人试验台，用于在现代商业计算平台上设计和评估下一代并行机器人算法和开源软件系统。RobotPlatform将基于Meka M1机器人，这是一种最先进的机器人，具有符合要求的灵活手臂以及摄像头和距离传感器。该机器人将用于开发一套新的运动策略和规划算法，并评估机器人在两个驾驶应用中的能力：(1)帮助老年人和残疾人进行日常生活活动；(2)主动远程临场感，使远程环境中的人们能够与机器人环境中的人进行物理交互？S环境。该机器人试验台可能会为个性化机器人的开发带来新的技术，以帮助完成日常生活和主动远程临场感任务。这些新的能力可以显著提高老年人、残疾人和其他个人的生活质量。实时运动策略的发展还可以使其他领域受益，如手术模拟、CAD/CAM、虚拟样机和虚拟现实环境。在该项目下开发的软件库将通过公共领域版本广泛提供给科学、工程和医学领域的所有研究和教育活动。研究团队还将把研究与教育结合起来，通过IBM赞助的Girls？等项目接触到代表性不足的群体。夏令营，积极让本科生参与拟议的研究，并组织关于实时情感策略的多核计算研讨会。最后，该团队预计，由拟议的设备采购带来的新的机器人学课程将有助于增加计算机科学的招生人数。

This infrastructure proposal supports the acquisition of a personal robot and a high-end multi-GPU workstation to develop a new robot testbed for designing and evaluating the next generation of parallelrobot algorithms and open-source software systems on modern commodity computing platforms. The robotplatform will be based on a Meka M1 robot, a state-of-the-art robot with compliant, dextrous arms pluscamera and range sensors. This robot will be used to develop a new set of motion strategy and planningalgorithms and evaluate the capabilities of the robots for two driving applications: (1) assisting older adultsand people with disabilities with activities of daily living and (2) active tele-presence to give people in aremote environment the ability to physically interact with people in the robot?s environment.This robot testbed could lead to novel technologies for the development of personalrobots for assistance with tasks of daily living and active telepresence. These new capabilities could significantlyimprove the quality of life for the elderly, people with disabilities, and other individuals. The developmentof real-time motion strategies could also benefit other areas, such as surgical simulation, CAD/CAM,virtual prototyping, and virtual reality environments. The software libraries developed under this projectwould be made widely available through the public-domain release for all research and educational activitiesacross science, engineering, and medical domains. Teh research team will also integrate research with education, reach outto under-represented groups via programs such as the IBM-sponsored Girls? summer camps, actively involvingundergraduates in the proposed research, and organizing workshops on many-core computing for real-timemotion strategies. Finally, the team expects the new robotics curriculum enabled by the proposed equipment acquisitionto help increase enrollment in Computer Science.