An Original Approach for a Better Remote Control of an Assistive Robot

Many researches have been done in the field of assistive robotics in the last few years. The first application field was helping with the disabled people\\u27s assistance. Different works have been performed on robotic arms in three kinds of situations. In the first case, static arm, the arm was principally dedicated to office tasks like telephone, fax... Several autonomous modes exist which need to know the precise position of objects. In the second configuration, the arm is mounted on a wheelchair. It follows the person who can employ it in more use cases. But if the person must stay in her/his bed, the arm is no more useful. In a third configuration, the arm is mounted on a separate platform. This configuration allows the largest number of use cases but also poses more difficulties for piloting the robot. The second application field of assistive robotics deals with the assistance at home of people losing their autonomy, for example a person with cognitive impairment. In this case, the assistance deals with two main points: security and cognitive stimulation. In order to ensure the safety of the person at home, different kinds of sensors can be used to detect alarming situations (falls, low cardiac pulse rate...). For assisting a distant operator in alarm detection, the idea is to give him the possibility to have complementary information from a mobile robot about the person\\u27s activity at home and to be in contact with the person. Cognitive stimulation is one of the therapeutic means used to maintain as long as possible the maximum of the cognitive capacities of the person. In this case, the robot can be used to bring to the person cognitive stimulation exercises and stimulate the person to perform them. To perform these tasks, it is very difficult to have a totally autonomous robot. In the case of disabled people assistance, it is even not the will of the persons who want to act by themselves. The idea is to develop a semi-autonomous robot that a remote operator can manually pilot with some driving assistances. This is a realistic and somehow desired solution. To achieve that, several scientific problems have to be studied. The first one is human-machine-cooperation. How a remote human operator can control a robot to perform a desired task? One of the key points is to permit the user to understand clearly the way the robot works. Our original approach is to analyse this understanding through appropriation concept introduced by Piaget in 1936. As the robot must have capacities of perceptio

Visual servoing based mobile robot navigation able to deal with complete target loss

International audienceThis paper combines the reactive collision avoidance methods with image-based visual servoing control for mobile robot navigation in an indoor environment. The proposed strategy allows the mobile robot to reach a desired position, described by a natural visual target, among unknown obstacles. While the robot avoids the obstacles, the camera could lose its target, which makes visual servoing fail. We propose in this paper a strategy to deal with the loss of visual features by taking advantage of the odometric data sensing. Obstacles are detected by the laser range finder and their boundaries are modeled using B-spline curves. We validate our strategy in a real experiment for an indoor mobile robot navigation in presence of obstacles

Utilisation des capteurs ultrasonores pour la distinction entre un plan et un coin à l'aide des méthodes statistiques

La technologie ultrasonore permet de développer un système de perception à faible coût pour la robotique de service. L'extraction des informations pertinentes sur l'environnement exige le traitement du signal ultrasonore. Les méthodes statistiques sont capables de discriminer des objets d'un environnement structuré, (plan, coin, etc...). La difficulté principale de la classification est le choix des paramètres discriminants du signal réfléchi par les cibles rencontrées. La dimension de l'espace de représentation des objets est réduite à l'aide de la méthode suboptimal. Les paramètres extraits définissent le vecteur d'entrée du classifieur quadratique. Les résultats obtenus montrent le taux de bonne classification par rapport à la dimension du vecteur d'entrée

High level assisted control mode based on SLAM for a remotely controlled robot

International audienceOne aim of ambient assistive technologies is to reduce long term hospitalization for elderly people, especially with pathologies such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The smart environment assists these people and their families with safety and cognitive stimulation, so they stay as long as possible at home. The originality comes from using the robot in the elderly person's home. This robot is remote controlled by a distant user, a therapist or a relative, for determining alarming situations or for participating in stimulation exercises. Several modes are available for controlling the robot. This paper deals with an assisted control mode in which the remote user gives to the robot one goal and the robot reaches the goal by itself. During the robot movement, the user can dynamically change the current goal. An important hypothesis is that the robot has no a priori knowledge of its environment at the beginning. The knowledge will increase with time and the planned trajectory will be refreshed at two levels: a local one - faster but not always sufficient - and a global one - slower but which always finds a path if one exists. The idea is to work only with local information, using the robot sensors, the operator keeping the high level control. To assure that control, the remote operator uses video feedback and information from a laser range scanner

Robotique Ambiante

Comment combiner bien-être, vieillissement de la population et contraintes socio-économiques ? En s'intéressant à la coopération homme-robot, explique Etienne Colle du laboratoire IBISC équipe Hands." Nos recherches visent le maintien à domicile des personnes en perte d'autonomie. La carte démographique de la France et de nombreux pays occidentaux se modifie constamment à la vue du vieillissement de la population. Les questions liées à la sécurité et à la santé de nos aînés constituent désormais un véritable challenge économique et social. Cela implique le développement de différentes aides techniques qui permettront de préserver le bien-être d'une population âgée croissante à un coût acceptable. Or le maintien à domicile est une alternative à l'hospitalisation qui répond à la tendance actuelle de réduction Ce qui fait l'intérêt d'un robot, c'est sa capacité à être mobile dans un environnement donné. Supposons qu'une personne âgée tombe chez elle, et qu'une alarme se déclenche pour prévenir un centre distant. Sans informations complémentaires, l'évaluation de la situation est très difficile. Mais si l'on dispose d'un robot équipé d'une caméra vidéo sur place, on peut se déplacer visuellement d'une pièce à une autre pour retrouver la personne, observer sa posture, entendre sa respiration, identifier le lieu... Des données que le SAMU utilisera pour affiner son diagnostic avant le déclenchement d'une intervention. Grâce à leur mobilité, les robots laissent envisager une télévigilance optimale. Notre démarche scientifique est fortement interdisciplinaire. Ainsi, les médecins nous aident à identifier les besoins en termes de santé, sans compter leurs retours sur nos expériences. D'autres disciplines sont également concernées, comme le traitement du signal, les capteurs, et les télécommunications, grâce auxquelles les signaux sont transmis via Internet jusqu'aux équipes soignantes. Enfin, dans notre laboratoire, nous nous focalisons sur les questions de contrôle-commande des robots, afin d'optimiser leur pilotage par les téléopérateurs. L'étape suivante sera de développer des robots plus autonomes, pour gagner un temps précieux lors d'une alerte. C'est un véritable challenge, car à l'heure actuelle, les prototypes sont testés dans des environnements édulcorés et peu réalistes. Mais en s'appuyant sur l'environnement de plus en plus communicant des habitats munis de capteurs domotiques ou physiologiques (pouls, chute...), nous comptons gagner en fiabilité. Des problèmes éthiques se posent également. Parce qu'ils voient tout et entendent tout, les robots sont de fait très intrusifs. La question de la confidentialité des données est essentielle

Interaction Homme-Robot dans le cadre de la personne handicapée ou dépendante

National audienc

Mobile robot localization by multiangulation using set inversion

International audienceThis work is about solving the global localization issue for mobile robots operating in large and cooperative environments. It tackles the problem of estimating the pose of a robot in the environment using real-time data either from the robot on-board sensors or/and from the sensors in the environment or/and the real-time data coming from other robots. The paper focuses on the 3-DOF localization of a mobile robot that is to say the estimation of the robot coordinates (xmr, ymr , θmr) in a 2D-environment. The interest of this method lies on the ability to easily integrate a large variety of sensors, from the roughest to the most complex one. The method takes into account the following constraints: a flexible number of measurements, generic goniometric measurements, a statistical knowledge on the measurements limited to the tolerance, and the fact the measurements are acquired both from the robot onboard sensors and the environment sensors. The approach is able to integrate an heterogeneous set of measurements not only generic goniometric measurements but also range, position given by a tactile tile, complex shape, dead reckoning measurements. The way that outliers and environment model inaccuracies can be taken into account is described. The problem of nonlinear bounded-error estimation is viewed as a set inversion. The paper presents the theoretical formulation of the localization method in a bounded-error context and the parameter estimation based on interval analysis. Simulation results as well as real experiments show the interest of the method in a cooperative environment context

P. Hoppenot, E. Colle : " Mobile robot command by man-machine co-operation -Application to disabled and elderly people assistance" -Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, to appear. Mobile robot command by man-machine co-operation - Application to di

Abstract Disabled people assistance is developing thanks to progress of new technologies. A manipulator arm mounted on a mobile robot can assist the disabled person for the partial restoration of the manipulative function. User pilots the robot via a control station using enhanced reality techniques. To be affordable such a system must be cost effective. That constraint limits perception means: ultrasonic ring, dead reckoning and low cost camera. The development of the project has followed two stages. The first one consists of giving maximum autonomy capacities to the robot for planning, navigation and localisation. The second stage is the study of the Man-Machine Co-operation (MMC) for the command of the robot system. Indeed, the aim is to perform a mission (mobile robot displacement) using robot capacities and man possibilities. Users build their own strategies to carry out successively a mission. Strategy can be seen as a succession of control modes, which can be manual, automatic or shared. In the latter case the control of the robot is shared between human operator and machine. The main problem is then task allocation between both intelligent entities. Each one has planification, navigation and localisation abilities. The paper presents our approach for planning and navigation and develops a more specific study about robot localisation