Advances on Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems

9th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems, PAAMS 2011, Salamanca,Spain, 6-8 April 2011 (http://www.paams.net/paams2011/) - Proceedings: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-642-19875-5International audienceno abstrac

Exploring Natural User Abstractions For Shared Perceptual Manipulator Task Modeling & Recovery

State-of-the-art domestic robot assistants are essentially autonomous mobile manipulators capable of exerting human-scale precision grasps. To maximize utility and economy, non-technical end-users would need to be nearly as efficient as trained roboticists in control and collaboration of manipulation task behaviors. However, it remains a significant challenge given that many WIMP-style tools require superficial proficiency in robotics, 3D graphics, and computer science for rapid task modeling and recovery. But research on robot-centric collaboration has garnered momentum in recent years; robots are now planning in partially observable environments that maintain geometries and semantic maps, presenting opportunities for non-experts to cooperatively control task behavior with autonomous-planning agents exploiting the knowledge. However, as autonomous systems are not immune to errors under perceptual difficulty, a human-in-the-loop is needed to bias autonomous-planning towards recovery conditions that resume the task and avoid similar errors. In this work, we explore interactive techniques allowing non-technical users to model task behaviors and perceive cooperatively with a service robot under robot-centric collaboration. We evaluate stylus and touch modalities that users can intuitively and effectively convey natural abstractions of high-level tasks, semantic revisions, and geometries about the world. Experiments are conducted with \u27pick-and-place\u27 tasks in an ideal \u27Blocks World\u27 environment using a Kinova JACO six degree-of-freedom manipulator. Possibilities for the architecture and interface are demonstrated with the following features; (1) Semantic \u27Object\u27 and \u27Location\u27 grounding that describe function and ambiguous geometries (2) Task specification with an unordered list of goal predicates, and (3) Guiding task recovery with implied scene geometries and trajectory via symmetry cues and configuration space abstraction. Empirical results from four user studies show our interface was much preferred than the control condition, demonstrating high learnability and ease-of-use that enable our non-technical participants to model complex tasks, provide effective recovery assistance, and teleoperative control

Collaborative human-machine interfaces for mobile manipulators.

The use of mobile manipulators in service industries as both agents in physical Human Robot Interaction (pHRI) and for social interactions has been on the increase in recent times due to necessities like compensating for workforce shortages and enabling safer and more efficient operations amongst other reasons. Collaborative robots, or co-bots, are robots that are developed for use with human interaction through direct contact or close proximity in a shared space with the human users. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on the design, implementation and analysis of components for the next-generation collaborative human machine interfaces (CHMI) needed for mobile manipulator co-bots that can be used in various service industries. The particular components of these CHMI\u27s that are considered in this dissertation include: Robot Control: A Neuroadaptive Controller (NAC)-based admittance control strategy for pHRI applications with a co-bot. Robot state estimation: A novel methodology and placement strategy for using arrays of IMUs that can be embedded in robot skin for pose estimation in complex robot mechanisms. User perception of co-bot CHMI\u27s: Evaluation of human perceptions of usefulness and ease of use of a mobile manipulator co-bot in a nursing assistant application scenario. To facilitate advanced control for the Adaptive Robotic Nursing Assistant (ARNA) mobile manipulator co-bot that was designed and developed in our lab, we describe and evaluate an admittance control strategy that features a Neuroadaptive Controller (NAC). The NAC has been specifically formulated for pHRI applications such as patient walking. The controller continuously tunes weights of a neural network to cancel robot non-linearities, including drive train backlash, kinematic or dynamic coupling, variable patient pushing effort, or slope surfaces with unknown inclines. The advantage of our control strategy consists of Lyapunov stability guarantees during interaction, less need for parameter tuning and better performance across a variety of users and operating conditions. We conduct simulations and experiments with 10 users to confirm that the NAC outperforms a classic Proportional-Derivative (PD) joint controller in terms of resulting interaction jerk, user effort, and trajectory tracking error during patient walking. To tackle complex mechanisms of these next-gen robots wherein the use of encoder or other classic pose measuring device is not feasible, we present a study effects of design parameters on methods that use data from Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) in robot skins to provide robot state estimates. These parameters include number of sensors, their placement on the robot, as well as noise properties on the quality of robot pose estimation and its signal-to-noise Ratio (SNR). The results from that study facilitate the creation of robot skin, and in order to enable their use in complex robots, we propose a novel pose estimation method, the Generalized Common Mode Rejection (GCMR) algorithm, for estimation of joint angles in robot chains containing composite joints. The placement study and GCMR are demonstrated using both Gazebo simulation and experiments with a 3-DoF robotic arm containing 2 non-zero link lengths, 1 revolute joint and a 2-DoF composite joint. In addition to yielding insights on the predicted usage of co-bots, the design of control and sensing mechanisms in their CHMI benefits from evaluating the perception of the eventual users of these robots. With co-bots being only increasingly developed and used, there is a need for studies into these user perceptions using existing models that have been used in predicting usage of comparable technology. To this end, we use the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to evaluate the CHMI of the ARNA robot in a scenario via analysis of quantitative and questionnaire data collected during experiments with eventual uses. The results from the works conducted in this dissertation demonstrate insightful contributions to the realization of control and sensing systems that are part of CHMI\u27s for next generation co-bots

Legged Robots for Object Manipulation: A Review

Legged robots can have a unique role in manipulating objects in dynamic, human-centric, or otherwise inaccessible environments. Although most legged robotics research to date typically focuses on traversing these challenging environments, many legged platform demonstrations have also included "moving an object" as a way of doing tangible work. Legged robots can be designed to manipulate a particular type of object (e.g., a cardboard box, a soccer ball, or a larger piece of furniture), by themselves or collaboratively. The objective of this review is to collect and learn from these examples, to both organize the work done so far in the community and highlight interesting open avenues for future work. This review categorizes existing works into four main manipulation methods: object interactions without grasping, manipulation with walking legs, dedicated non-locomotive arms, and legged teams. Each method has different design and autonomy features, which are illustrated by available examples in the literature. Based on a few simplifying assumptions, we further provide quantitative comparisons for the range of possible relative sizes of the manipulated object with respect to the robot. Taken together, these examples suggest new directions for research in legged robot manipulation, such as multifunctional limbs, terrain modeling, or learning-based control, to support a number of new deployments in challenging indoor/outdoor scenarios in warehouses/construction sites, preserved natural areas, and especially for home robotics.Comment: Preprint of the paper submitted to Frontiers in Mechanical Engineerin

Proceedings / 6th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2015, 24th-25th September, 2015, Belgrade

editors Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misita, Dragan D. Milanovi

Proceedings / 6th International Symposium of Industrial Engineering - SIE 2015, 24th-25th September, 2015, Belgrade

editors Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misita, Dragan D. Milanovi

How to Communicate Robot Motion Intent: A Scoping Review

Robots are becoming increasingly omnipresent in our daily lives, supporting us and carrying out autonomous tasks. In Human-Robot Interaction, human actors benefit from understanding the robot's motion intent to avoid task failures and foster collaboration. Finding effective ways to communicate this intent to users has recently received increased research interest. However, no common language has been established to systematize robot motion intent. This work presents a scoping review aimed at unifying existing knowledge. Based on our analysis, we present an intent communication model that depicts the relationship between robot and human through different intent dimensions (intent type, intent information, intent location). We discuss these different intent dimensions and their interrelationships with different kinds of robots and human roles. Throughout our analysis, we classify the existing research literature along our intent communication model, allowing us to identify key patterns and possible directions for future research.Comment: Interactive Data Visualization of the Paper Corpus: https://rmi.robot-research.d

Technology 2003: The Fourth National Technology Transfer Conference and Exposition, volume 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2003 Conference and Exposition, Dec. 7-9, 1993, Anaheim, CA, are presented. Volume 2 features papers on artificial intelligence, CAD&E, computer hardware, computer software, information management, photonics, robotics, test and measurement, video and imaging, and virtual reality/simulation

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 1

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. Topics addressed include: redundant manipulators; man-machine systems; telerobot architecture; remote sensing and planning; navigation; neural networks; fundamental AI research; and reasoning under uncertainty