II-EN: Enhancing an Infrastructure with an Agile Dexterous Mobile Manipulator for Research on Dynamic Balance

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

The project develops a test bed for exploring highly agile robot mobility in human environments such as an office or home, while also incorporating a highly dexterous ability for purposefully interacting with features in the environment such as opening doors, moving tables or furniture, and manipulating everyday objects. Mobile robots are poised to take increasingly important roles in our daily lives ranging from transporting materials in warehouses and hospitals, inventory management in retail stores, and applications in direct service to people including support and guidance in public spaces. Wheeled mobile robots currently lack the agility and dexterity needed for these kinds of tasks. The project enhances the CMU ballbot research platform, a first-of-its-kind capability previously developed under NSF funding. Ballbots are dynamically stable mobile robots, which balance and locomote on single spherical wheels. Unique advantages of the ballbot class of mobile robots include tall heights enabling human-robot interaction at eye level, a small footprint afforded by the single ball wheel, and omni-directional motion with intrinsic compliance. This combination of desirable features does not exist in traditional statically stable mobile robots. The project develops and adds a pair of 7-degree-of-freedom arms and hands to the CMU ballbot platform. The objective is to create an unprecedented capability for agile and dexterous mobile manipulation. Here, the term "agile" refers to the ballbot?s current ability to swiftly and smoothly move through the environment, while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles. The term "dexterous" refers to the ability to skillfully manipulate objects and interact with the environment. Reaching this compound goal is enabled in part by the creation of a pair of new lightweight but strong human-scale arms/hands for the ballbot and the requisite software to enable a wide range of future research.