A new approach on human-robot collaboration with humanoid robot RH-2

This paper was originally submitted under the auspices of the CLAWAR Association. It is an extension of work presented at CLAWAR 2009: The 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines, Istanbul, Turkey.This paper presents a novel control architecture for humanoid robot RH-2. The main objective is that a robot can perform different tasks in collaboration with humans in working environments. In order to achieve this goal, two control loops have to be defined. The outer loop, called collaborative control loop, is devoted to the generation of stable motion patterns for a robot, given a specific manipulation task. The inner loop, called posture stability control loop, acts to guarantee the stability of humanoid for different poses determined by motion patterns. A case study is presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed control architecture.This work has been supported by the CAM Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 II, the CYCIT Project PI2004-00325 and the European Project Robot@CWE FP6-2005-IST-5

Representation and control of coordinated-motion tasks for human-robot systems

It is challenging for robots to perform various tasks in a human environment. This is because many human-centered tasks require coordination in both hands and may often involve cooperation with another human. Although human-centered tasks require different types of coordinated movements, most of the existing methodologies have focused only on specific types of coordination. This thesis aims at the description and control of coordinated-motion tasks for human-robot systems; i.e., humanoid robots as well as multi-robot and human-robot systems. First, for bimanually coordinated-motion tasks in dual-manipulator systems, we propose the Extended-Cooperative-Task-Space (ECTS) representation, which extends the existing Cooperative-Task-Space (CTS) representation based on the kinematic models for human bimanual movements in Biomechanics. The proposed ECTS representation can represent the whole spectrum of dual-arm motion/force coordination using two sets of ECTS motion/force variables in a unified manner. The type of coordination can be easily chosen by two meaningful coefficients, and during coordinated-motion tasks, each set of variables directly describes two different aspects of coordinated motion and force behaviors. Thus, the operator can specify coordinated-motion/force tasks more intuitively in high-level descriptions, and the specified tasks can be easily reused in other situations with greater flexibility. Moreover, we present consistent procedures of using the ECTS representation for task specifications in the upper-body and lower-body subsystems of humanoid robots in order to perform manipulation and locomotion tasks, respectively. Besides, we propose and discuss performance indices derived based on the ECTS representation, which can be used to evaluate and optimize the performance of any type of dual-arm manipulation tasks. We show that using the ECTS representation for specifying both dual-arm manipulation and biped locomotion tasks can greatly simplify the motion planning process, allowing the operator to focus on high-level descriptions of those tasks. Both upper-body and lower-body task specifications are demonstrated by specifying whole-body task examples on a Hubo II+ robot carrying out dual-arm manipulation as well as biped locomotion tasks in a simulation environment. We also present the results from experiments on a dual-arm robot (Baxter) for teleoperating various types of coordinated-motion tasks using a single 6D mouse interface. The specified upper- and lower-body tasks can be considered as coordinated motions with constraints. In order to express various constraints imposed across the whole-body, we discuss the modeling of whole-body structure and the computations for robotic systems having multiple kinematic chains. Then we present a whole-body controller formulated as a quadratic programming, which can take different types of constraints into account in a prioritized manner. We validate the whole-body controller based on the simulation results on a Hubo II+ robot performing specified whole-body task examples with a number of motion and force constraints as well as actuation limits. Lastly, we discuss an extension of the ECTS representation, called Hierarchical Extended-Cooperative-Task Space (H-ECTS) framework, which uses tree-structured graphical representations for coordinated-motion tasks of multi-robot and human-robot systems. The H-ECTS framework is validated by experimental results on two Baxter robots cooperating with each other as well as with an additional human partner

Humanoid Robots

For many years, the human being has been trying, in all ways, to recreate the complex mechanisms that form the human body. Such task is extremely complicated and the results are not totally satisfactory. However, with increasing technological advances based on theoretical and experimental researches, man gets, in a way, to copy or to imitate some systems of the human body. These researches not only intended to create humanoid robots, great part of them constituting autonomous systems, but also, in some way, to offer a higher knowledge of the systems that form the human body, objectifying possible applications in the technology of rehabilitation of human beings, gathering in a whole studies related not only to Robotics, but also to Biomechanics, Biomimmetics, Cybernetics, among other areas. This book presents a series of researches inspired by this ideal, carried through by various researchers worldwide, looking for to analyze and to discuss diverse subjects related to humanoid robots. The presented contributions explore aspects about robotic hands, learning, language, vision and locomotion

Humanoid navigation and heavy load transportation in a cluttered environment

International audienceAlthough in recent years several studies aimed at the navigation of robots in cluttered environments, just a few have addressed the problem of robots navigating while moving a large or heavy object. This is especially useful when transporting loads with variable weights and shapes without having to change the robot hardware. On one hand, a major advantage of using a humanoid robot to move an object is that it has arms to firmly grasp it and control it. On the other hand, humanoid robots tend to have higher drift than their wheeled counterparts as well as having significant lateral swing while walking, which propagates to anything they carry. In this work, we present algorithms for a humanoid robot navigating in a cluttered environment while pushing a cart-like object. In addition, the algorithms make use of the hands and arms to articulate the cart when executing tight turns using whole body control scheme to reduce the lateral swing effect on the load and ensure a safe transport. Experiments conducted on a real Nao robot assessed the proposed approach and algorithms, they show that the payload of a humanoid robot can be significantly increased without changing the humanoid robot's hardware, and therefore enact the capacity of humanoid robots in real-life situations

Climbing and Walking Robots

With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers, scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots. The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a considerable amount of interesting and useful information

Designing an algorithm for bioloid humanoid navigating in its indoor environment

Gait analyses are the preliminary requirements to establish a navigation system of a humanoid robot. Designing a suitable indoor environment and its mapping are also important for the android localization, selection of a goal to achieve it and to perform the assigned tasks in its surroundings. This paper delineates the various gaits like walking, turning, obstacle overcoming and step up-down stairs for a humanoid system. The writing also explicates the design of the indoor test environment with the stationary obstacles placed on the navigation routes. The development of an efficient algorithm is also excogitated based on the various analyses of gaits and the predefined map of the test environment. As the navigation map is predetermined, the designed algorithm animates the humanoid to navigate by selecting an optimal route, depending on some external commands, to reach at the goal position. Finally the performance of the system is analysed based on the elapsed time of the navigation action with the validation of optimal navigation strategy where the designed algorithm demonstrates the robustness of its implementation and execution

Contemporary Robotics

This book book is a collection of 18 chapters written by internationally recognized experts and well-known professionals of the field. Chapters contribute to diverse facets of contemporary robotics and autonomous systems. The volume is organized in four thematic parts according to the main subjects, regarding the recent advances in the contemporary robotics. The first thematic topics of the book are devoted to the theoretical issues. This includes development of algorithms for automatic trajectory generation using redudancy resolution scheme, intelligent algorithms for robotic grasping, modelling approach for reactive mode handling of flexible manufacturing and design of an advanced controller for robot manipulators. The second part of the book deals with different aspects of robot calibration and sensing. This includes a geometric and treshold calibration of a multiple robotic line-vision system, robot-based inline 2D/3D quality monitoring using picture-giving and laser triangulation, and a study on prospective polymer composite materials for flexible tactile sensors. The third part addresses issues of mobile robots and multi-agent systems, including SLAM of mobile robots based on fusion of odometry and visual data, configuration of a localization system by a team of mobile robots, development of generic real-time motion controller for differential mobile robots, control of fuel cells of mobile robots, modelling of omni-directional wheeled-based robots, building of hunter- hybrid tracking environment, as well as design of a cooperative control in distributed population-based multi-agent approach. The fourth part presents recent approaches and results in humanoid and bioinspirative robotics. It deals with design of adaptive control of anthropomorphic biped gait, building of dynamic-based simulation for humanoid robot walking, building controller for perceptual motor control dynamics of humans and biomimetic approach to control mechatronic structure using smart materials

Evolving modular soft robots without explicit inter-module communication using local self-attention

Modularity in robotics holds great potential. In principle, modular robots can be disassembled and reassembled in different robots, and possibly perform new tasks. Nevertheless, actually exploiting modularity is yet an unsolved problem: controllers usually rely on inter-module communication, a practical requirement that makes modules not perfectly interchangeable and thus limits their flexibility. Here, we focus on Voxel-based Soft Robots (VSRs), aggregations of mechanically identical elastic blocks. We use the same neural controller inside each voxel, but without any inter-voxel communication, hence enabling ideal conditions for modularity: modules are all equal and interchangeable. We optimize the parameters of the neural controller—shared among the voxels—by evolutionary computation. Crucially, we use a local self-attention mechanism inside the controller to overcome the absence of inter-module communication channels, thus enabling our robots to truly be driven by the collective intelligence of their modules. We show experimentally that the evolved robots are effective in the task of locomotion: thanks to self-attention, instances of the same controller embodied in the same robot can focus on different inputs. We also find that the evolved controllers generalize to unseen morphologies, after a short fine-tuning, suggesting that an inductive bias related to the task arises from true modularity