Vizzy: A Humanoid on Wheels for Assistive Robotics

The development of an assistive robotic platform poses exciting engineering and design challenges due to the diversity of possible applications. This article introduces Vizzy, a wheeled humanoid robot with an anthropomorphic upper torso, that combines easy mobility, grasping ability, human-like visual perception, eye-head movements and arm gestures. The humanoid appearance improves user acceptance and facilitates interaction. The lower body mobile platform is able to navigate both indoors and outdoors. We describe the requirements, design and construction of Vizzy, as well as its current cognitive capabilities and envisaged domains of application.

[1]  Nikolaos G. Tsagarakis,et al.  The Design of the iCub humanoid Robot , 2012, Int. J. Humanoid Robotics.

[2]  Manuel Lopes,et al.  An anthropomorphic robot torso for imitation: design and experiments , 2004, 2004 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566).

[3]  Giulio Sandini,et al.  An experimental evaluation of a novel minimum-jerk cartesian controller for humanoid robots , 2010, 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[4]  Fangkai Yang,et al.  Planning in Action Language BC while Learning Action Costs for Mobile Robots , 2014, ICAPS.

[5]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Monte Carlo Localization: Efficient Position Estimation for Mobile Robots , 1999, AAAI/IAAI.

[6]  Pedro U. Lima,et al.  Tracking objects with generic calibrated sensors: An algorithm based on color and 3D shape features , 2010, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[7]  Florian Schmidt,et al.  Rollin' Justin - Design considerations and realization of a mobile platform for a humanoid upper body , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[8]  Giorgio Metta,et al.  Towards long-lived robot genes , 2008, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[9]  Ferdinand Freudenstein,et al.  Kinematic Synthesis of Linkages , 1965 .

[10]  P. A. Houglum,et al.  Brunnstrom's Clinical kinesiology , 1983 .

[11]  T. Asfour,et al.  ARMAR-III : A HUMANOID PLATFORM FOR PERCEPTION-ACTION INTEGRATION , 2006 .

[12]  Oussama Khatib,et al.  Elastic bands: connecting path planning and control , 1993, [1993] Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[13]  Alexandre Bernardino,et al.  On the purity of training and testing data for learning: The case of pedestrian detection , 2015, Neurocomputing.

[14]  T. I. King.  Brunnstrom’s Clinical Kinesiology , 1984 .

[15]  Shigeki Sugano,et al.  Design of human symbiotic robot TWENDY-ONE , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.