NRI:INT: Integrating Robotic and AI Technologies to Support Embodied Collaborative Design

协作式设计，即团队成员一起确定需求、开发设计理念、头脑风暴和审查实体产品，在产品设计、网站和交互设计以及架构等许多行业中都很常见。协作设计包括动手活动，例如绘制草图、绘制图表，以及创建和操作物理原型。随着劳动力的日益全球化，协作设计现在通常由虚拟团队完成，其中一些成员可能与设计空间没有物理上的搭配。然而，传统的协作工具，如视频会议或共享文档无法满足虚拟设计团队的需求，因为这些工具旨在支持不涉及物理空间或对象的小组活动。本项目旨在解决这一问题，并更好地支持虚拟设计团队使用人类友好的机器人来支持分布式的动手设计活动。该项目将创建一个“未来的设计工作室”，将人机交互和自主机器人相结合，创造更强的共享空间感。该工作室将允许虚拟设计团队的成员与物理空间和对象进行互动，就像团队成员一样成功。具体而言，该项目将(a)制定一个框架，以了解虚拟设计团队的技术需求；(b)开发和评估一套用于远程呈现机器人和操纵器的界面和控制技术，以支持设计过程的关键阶段；(c)开发和评估机器人自主的模型和算法，使虚拟设计团队更容易使用远程呈现工具；(d)综合和评价实验室和实地研究中的技术和发现。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Collaborative design, in which team members work together to determine requirements, develop design ideas, brainstorm and review physical products, is common in many industries such as product design, website and interaction design, and architecture. Collaborative design involves hands-on activities such as sketching, diagraming, and creating and manipulating physical prototypes. With the increasing globalization of the workforce, collaborative design is now often done by virtual teams in which some members may not be physically collocated with the design space. However, conventional collaboration tools like video conferencing or shared documents fail to meet the needs of virtual design teams because these tools are designed to support group activities that do not involve physical space or objects. This project aims to solve this problem and better support virtual design teams using human friendly robots to support distributed hands-on design activities. The project will create a "design studio of the future" that integrates human-robot interaction and autonomous robotics to create a stronger sense of shared space. The studio will allow members of virtual design teams to engage with physical space and objects as successfully as members of collocated teams. Specifically, the project will (a) develop a framework for understanding the technology needs of virtual design teams; (b) develop and evaluate a set of interface and control techniques for telepresence robots and manipulators that will support key phases of the design process; (c) develop and evaluate models and algorithms of robot autonomy that will make telepresence tools easier for virtual design teams to use; and (d) integrate and evaluate the techniques and findings in laboratory and field studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.