Motion Segmentation and Control Design for UCF-MANUS—An Intelligent Assistive Robotic Manipulator

In this paper, we document the progress in the design of a motion segmentation and control strategy for a smart assistive robot arm that can provide assistance during activities of daily living to the elderly and/or users with disabilities. Interaction with the environment is made challenging by the kinematic uncertainty in the robot, imperfect sensor calibration as well as the fact that most activities of daily living are generally required to be performed in unstructured environments. The motion control strategy exploits visual and force feedback from sensors in the robot’s hand to provide the basis for efficient interaction with the unstructured environment. Through experimental studies with a variety of objects of daily life in natural environments, an anthropomorphic-like approach was found to be the most suitable for reliable and speedy object retrieval. Specifically, gross reaching/docking motions of the robot arm using proprioception are followed by fine alignment of the hand through visual feedback and eventually grasping based on haptic feedback. Experimental results using a wheelchair mounted robotic arm are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithms.

[1]  François Chaumette,et al.  Potential problems of stability and convergence in image-based and position-based visual servoing , 1997 .

[2]  Robert C. Bolles,et al.  Random sample consensus: a paradigm for model fitting with applications to image analysis and automated cartography , 1981, CACM.

[3]  Ying Wang,et al.  A Hybrid Visual Servo Controller for Robust Grasping by Wheeled Mobile Robots , 2010, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[4]  Rainer Bischoff,et al.  Design Concept and Realization of the Humanoid Service Robot HERMES , 1998 .

[5]  J. C. Rosier,et al.  The MANUS wheelchair-borne manipulator system , 1988 .

[6]  Rolf Dieter Schraft,et al.  Care-O-bot II—Development of a Next Generation Robotic Home Assistant , 2004, Auton. Robots.

[7]  Dae-Jin Kim,et al.  Eye-in-hand stereo visual servoing of an assistive robot arm in unstructured environments , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[8]  J. Sijs,et al.  Vision-based control of the Manus using SIFT , 2007, 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics.

[9]  K. Cook,et al.  Article 14: Effect of a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm on functional outcomes in persons with spinal cord injury1 , 2003 .

[10]  M. Bonkovic,et al.  Population-Based Uncalibrated Visual Servoing , 2008, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[11]  H. Nguyen.  El-E: An Assistive Robot that Fetches Objects from Flat Surfaces , 2008 .

[12]  E. Malis,et al.  2 1/2 D Visual Servoing , 1999 .

[13]  Matthijs C. Dorst.  Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints , 2011 .

[14]  Olivier Faugeras,et al.  Motion and Structure from Motion in a piecewise Planar Environment , 1988, Int. J. Pattern Recognit. Artif. Intell..

[15]  Christophe Collewet,et al.  Visual Servoing Based on Structure From Controlled Motion or on Robust Statistics , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[16]  Shahram Jafari,et al.  Relative visual servoing: a comparison with hybrid intelligent models , 2004 .

[17]  François Chaumette,et al.  Visual Servoing Based on Image Motion , 2001, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[18]  Allen R. Hanson,et al.  Mobile manipulators for assisted living in residential settings , 2008, Auton. Robots.

[19]  Warren E. Dixon,et al.  Adaptive homography-based visual servo tracking for a fixed camera configuration with a camera-in-hand extension , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[20]  Francois Chaumette,et al.  Potential problems of unstability and divergence in image-based and position-based visual servoing , 1999, 1999 European Control Conference (ECC).

[21]  Oliver Lang,et al.  A FRIEND for assisting handicapped people , 2001, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag..

[22]  Olivier Faugeras,et al.  Three-Dimensional Computer Vision , 1993 .

[23]  Rajiv Dubey,et al.  Telerobotic Haptic System to Enhance the Performance of Vocational Tests by Motion-Impaired Users , 2003 .

[24]  Gunnar Bolmsjö,et al.  WALKY, an ultrasonic navigating mobile robot for the disabled , 1995 .

[25]  Ferdinando A Mussa-Ivaldi,et al.  Interaction of visual and proprioceptive feedback during adaptation of human reaching movements. , 2005, Journal of neurophysiology.

[26]  François Chaumette,et al.  2 1/2 D Visual Servoing with Respect to Unknown Objects Through a New Estimation Scheme of Camera Displacement , 2000, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[27]  Vincent Lepetit,et al.  Fast Keypoint Recognition in Ten Lines of Code , 2007, 2007 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[28]  L. Leifer,et al.  Clinical evaluation of a desktop robotic assistant. , 1989, Journal of rehabilitation research and development.

[29]  Z. Zenn Bien,et al.  KARES: Intelligent wheelchair-mounted robotic arm system using vision and force sensor , 1999, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[30]  Katherine M. Tsui,et al.  Development and evaluation of a flexible interface for a wheelchair mounted robotic arm , 2008, 2008 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[31]  Christophe Collewet,et al.  Model-free visual servoing on complex images based on 3D reconstruction , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[32]  Christophe Collewet,et al.  Visual servoing based on dynamic vision , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.03CH37422).

[33]  Giulio Sandini,et al.  Visual Behaviors for Docking , 1997, Comput. Vis. Image Underst..

[34]  C. Leroux,et al.  Intuitive human interaction with an arm robot for severely handicapped people - A One Click Approach , 2007, 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics.

[35]  Nicholas R. Gans,et al.  Stable Visual Servoing Through Hybrid Switched-System Control , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[36]  Dong-Soo Kwon,et al.  Development of a wheelchair-based rehabilitation robotic system (KARES II) with various human-robot interaction interfaces for the disabled , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM 2003).

[37]  Paolo Dario,et al.  MOVAID: a mobile robotic system for residential care to disabled and elderly people , 1997 .

[38]  I. Perkash,et al.  Evaluation of a vocational robot with a quadriplegic employee. , 1992, Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation.