CAREER: Advancing Physical Human-Robot Interaction through Intuitive Sensorimotor Communication

在不久的将来，机器人系统将与人类合作伙伴密切合作，完成制造中的材料处理和临床环境中的患者护理等共同任务。为了确保安全和有效的互动，机器人伙伴必须解释和理解人类伙伴的目标和意图，如通过各种信息渠道传达的，包括物理互动。人类伙伴还必须能够解释和理解机器人的预期动作。这个学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)项目旨在了解人类和机器人如何通过单点物理接触的阻抗调制来传达彼此的意图。该项目将利用这一知识开发一种机器人系统，当人类伙伴在协作路径跟踪场景(辅助行走)中“手牵手”行走时，该系统可以安全、直观地与他们互动。通过分析不同领导者/跟随者场景中手部的力和相应的手臂运动，将识别特定的人类阻抗调制策略，从而实现通过手臂和手进行自然的人-机器人交互。该项目将推进NSF促进科学进步和促进国家健康、繁荣和福利的使命，通过促进对通过人和体现的机器智能的物理耦合而成为可能的新型通信战略的基本理解。该项目还将为公众提供早期接触和培训物理交互机器人的机会，特别是对STEM课程的学生和K-12教育工作者。这项工作侧重于意图沟通和人类手臂的机械阻抗在协作的人-机器人交互中的作用。该项目将测量人类在被引导的伙伴行走时的手臂阻抗，人类既可以充当领导者，也可以充当追随者。在伙伴行走中，一个智能体以期望的速度引导另一个智能体通过期望的路径。机器人偶尔会对人类的手臂施加微小的瞬变力扰动，并监测由此产生的手臂运动，以推断肢体阻抗。然后，项目团队将确定在人类扮演领导者角色的情况下和在人类是跟随者的情况下手臂阻抗的上下文调制。通过这样做，项目组寻求识别有效和直观的物理人-机器人协作背后的物理通信策略。最后，该项目将通过在模拟人类搭档行走的移动机器人上实施已识别的意图沟通策略来量化它们的有效性。这些实验将使用一个受力控制的地面交互式机器人进行，该机器人与人类一起在一个由3D运动捕捉系统监控的大房间里行走。该项目的研究和教育工作将为实现人类和机器人之间的直观物理交流奠定基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the near future, robotic systems will collaborate closely with human partners to complete shared tasks such as materials handling in manufacturing and patient care in clinical settings. To ensure safe and effective interaction, the robotic partner must interpret and understand the human partner's goals and intent, as communicated through various information channels, including physical interaction. The human partner must also be able to interpret and understand the robot's intended actions. This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project aims to understand how a human and a robot can communicate each other’s intent through impedance modulation at a single point of physical contact. The project will use this knowledge to develop a robotic system that interacts safely and intuitively with a human partner as they walk "hand-in-hand" in a collaborative path-following scenario (assisted walking). By analyzing the forces at the hands and consequent movements of the arms during different leader/follower scenarios, specific impedance modulation strategies of humans will be identified that enable natural human-robot interaction through their arms and hands. The project will advance the NSF mission to promote the progress of science and to advance national health, prosperity, and welfare by advancing a fundamental understanding of novel communication strategies made possible through the physical coupling of human and embodied machine intelligences. This project will also provide early exposure and training opportunities on physically interactive robots to the public, particularly to students in STEM programs and to K-12 educators.This work focuses on intent communication and the role of the mechanical impedance of the human arm during collaborative, physical human-robot interactions. The project will measure human arm impedance during guided partner walking with the human acting either as leader or follower. In partner walking, one agent guides the other through a desired path at some desired speed. The robot will apply small transient force perturbations occasionally to the human arm and monitor the resulting arm motions to infer limb impedance. The project team will then identify the contextual modulation of arm impedance during situations where the human assumes the role of the leader and in situations where the human is the follower. By doing so, the project team seeks to discern physical communication strategies underlying effective and intuitive physical human-robot collaborations. Finally, the project will quantify the effectiveness of the identified intent communication strategies by implementing them on a mobile robot that simulates human partnered walking. The experiments will be performed using a force-controlled over-ground interactive robot that walks together with a human in a large room monitored by a 3D motion capture system. The research and educational work of this project will lay the foundation for implementing intuitive physical communication between humans and robots.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.