NRI: Collaborative Research: Efficient Algorithms for Contact-Aware State Estimation

该项目解决了困难的理论、计算和应用挑战，需要利用机器感知/估计算法的最新进展与计划/控制系统的摩擦接触算法的最新进展之间的深层数学关系。它探讨了这些算法在感知、机器人物体操纵和零件装配以及执行复杂、多接触、全身动作的类人机器人中的直接应用。为了展示方法的普遍性，同时接触到重要的未被充分代表的少数群体，研究团队采用了一种新的实践短期课程，在课程中，学生们使用所提出的算法来使用视觉跟踪来预测游戏的结果。该课程是与麻省理工学院少数民族教育办公室（OME）合作开发的。该项目汇集了同步定位和测绘（SLAM）、机器人操作、机器人自动化、有腿机器人以及优化和非线性控制方面的专业知识，从而实现了思想和技术的交叉融合。研究小组利用了拉格朗日动力学中接触的互补性公式的稀疏性。该项目探索了非线性估计器设计的一种新的代数方法。该项目产生了新的定理、新的算法，并在真实的机器人上得到了实验结果。该项目也代表了我们与工业合作伙伴ABB机器人的新伙伴关系。开发的算法促进了广泛的新应用，其中感知和控制系统监测和操纵与世界的物理交互。从手掌大小的智能设备到环境监测，传感器正变得无处不在；为了充分发挥其潜力，这些传感器网络必须能够对接触进行推理——这是物理交互的基本组成部分。

This project addresses the difficult theoretical, computational, and applied challenges required to exploit a deep mathematical relationship between recent advances in machine perception/estimation algorithms and recent advances in algorithms for planning/controlling systems undergoing frictional contact. It explores the immediate applications of these algorithms to perception, robotic object manipulation and parts assembly, and humanoid robots performing complex, multi-contact, whole-body maneuvers. In order to showcase the generality of approach, and simultaneously reach out to the important under-represented minority population, the research team employs a new hands-on short-course curriculum in which students apply the proposed algorithms to predict the outcome of games using visual tracking. The course is being developed in partnership with the MIT Office of Minority Education (OME).The project brings together expertise in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), robot manipulation, robotic automation, legged robots, and optimization and nonlinear control, leading to a cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques. The research team exploits sparsity in the complementarity formulations of contact in Lagrangian dynamics. The project explores a new algebraic approach to nonlinear estimator design. The project produces new theorems, new algorithms, and experimental results on real robots. The project also represents a new partnership with our industrial collaborator, ABB Robotics. The developed algorithms facilitate a broad range of new applications in which perception and control systems monitor and manipulate physical interactions with the world. From palm-sized smart devices to environmental monitoring, sensors are becoming ubiquitous; to reach their full potential these sensor networks must be able to reason about contact - the basic building block of physical interaction.