CAREER: Extending Human Dexterity Through Hand-Held Continuum Robots

该学院早期职业发展奖将通过提供与手持式连续体机器人相关的新知识来促进科学进步和促进国民健康。这类机器人很有前途--特别是在敏感和受限的环境中导航--因为它们实现了像使用手动工具一样的工作流程，并可以将直接人类操作的好处与机器人控制的精确度和灵活性结合起来。然而，连续体机器人复杂的运动学，以及人和机器人的直接物理耦合，给操作员带来了如何实现精确和直观控制的挑战。该项目将调查不同的人-连续统机器人交互方法如何影响任务性能，其见解将有助于指导新的人在环控制方法和连续统机器人设计的创建。该项目的成果通过改变医疗保健、检测和制造等多个行业的任务绩效，有可能产生重大的社会影响。该项目还将支持一个广泛的教育和推广计划，包括开发一种新的手持触觉设备以及相关的动手实验室活动，旨在促进基于问题的学习，将在本科和研究生课程中使用，并在当地中学生的一系列研讨会中使用，以增加对STEM的接触和兴奋。该项目的目标是确定不同的人-连续统机器人交互方法如何影响任务绩效，并在手持同心管机器人和手持可操纵的藤条机器人的背景下测试这些方法。为了达到这一目标，这项研究将从三个主要目标入手。第一个目标侧重于开发估计和解释用户意图的方法，以实现人工输入和远程操作输入的无缝集成，并量化这种集成对任务绩效的影响。第二个目标集中在通过自动控制机器人形状和结合触觉反馈来改进机器人工具的实施。最后，第三个目标集中于评估通过前两个目标学习的人-连续统机器人交互原则在多个机器人平台上的适用程度。为此，将创造一种新的手持式、可操纵的藤条机器人，并用于测试新方法的适用性。总体而言，这项研究将有助于推动柔性和软机器人以及人机交互领域的发展，使机器人能够直观地部署形状可控的机器人，以便在受限的环境中安全有效地完成任务。该项目由跨部门机器人基础研究计划支持，该计划由工程学指导委员会(ENG)和计算机与信息科学与工程指导委员会(CEISE)共同管理和资助。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。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will serve to promote the progress of science and to advance national health by providing new knowledge related to hand-held continuum robots. Such robots are promising—particularly for navigation through sensitive and constrained environments—because they enable a workflow like using manual tools and can combine the benefits of direct human operation with the precision and dexterity of robotic control. However, the complex kinematics of continuum robots, along with the direct physical coupling of the human and robot, pose challenges for how to enable precise and intuitive control for operators. This project will investigate how different human-continuum robot interaction methods affect task performance, and insights will help guide the creation of new human-in-the-loop control methods and continuum robot designs. The outcomes of this project have potential for significant societal impact by transforming task performance in several industries, including healthcare, inspection, and manufacturing. This project will also support an extensive education and outreach plan that includes the development of a new hand-held haptic device along with related hands-on lab activities designed to promote problem-based learning that will be used in both undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as in a series of workshops for local middle school students to increase exposure and excitement for STEM.The objective of this project is to determine how different human-continuum robot interaction methods affect task performance and to test these approaches in the context of a hand-held concentric tube robot and a hand-held, steerable vine robot. To achieve this objective, the research will proceed with three main aims. The first aim focuses on developing methods for estimating and interpreting user intent to achieve seamless integration of manual and teleoperated input, as well as quantifying the effects of this integration on task performance. The second aim focuses on improving robotic tool embodiment through automating the control of the robot shape and through incorporating haptic feedback. Finally, the third aim centers on evaluating the extent to which the principles of human-continuum robot interaction learned through the first two aims hold across multiple robot platforms. For this purpose, a new hand-held, steerable vine robot will be created and used for testing the applicability of the new methods. Overall, this research will help advance the fields of flexible and soft robotics and human-robot interaction, enabling intuitive deployment of robots with shapes that can be controlled for safe and effective completion of tasks in constrained environments. This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).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.