Toward Spatially Competent Mobile Manipulation in Indoor Human Environments

我们的研究重点是开发自主移动机械手（AMM）的空间能力，运动安全，抓取和操作能力，远远超出任何现有的机器人系统。这些能力包括在室内和动态环境中与人类行走的导航，执行基本的操作任务，以及在任务中与人类互动，例如将物体从机器人转移到人类。这些基本功能的目标应用是服务机器人，例如，可以帮助身体虚弱或残疾的人（称为辅助人员或APs）独立生活的辅助机器人，帮助完成诸如从家中寻找和检索物体（例如一瓶药片）并将其交给AP（移交任务）等任务，最终提高独立生活的AP的日常生活质量。

Our research focuses on developing a level of spatial competency, motion safety, grasping and manipulation capability in autonomous mobile manipulators (AMM) that is well beyond that of any existing robotic systems. Such capabilities include navigating in indoor and dynamic environments with humans walking around, carrying out basic manipulation tasks and interacting with humans in tasks such as transfer of objects from robot to human. The target application for these fundamental capabilities is service robotics, e.g., a helper robot that can assist frail or disabled persons (called Assisted Persons or APs) in independent living, helping in tasks such as finding and retrieving objects from around the home (e.g. a bottle of pills) and handing them to the AP (hand over task), etc. to ultimately improve the quality of life in daytoday functioning of an AP living independently.