Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

The proposed proposal for the program is to develop methodologies and technologies that will lead to precise manipulation of autonomous mobile robots in practical applications with dynamic interaction. The main contribution is set to improve the versatility, autonomy and dependability of current autonomous robotic systems, specifically in manipulation applications. In view of the needed capabilities for the ultimate objective, the scope of the proposed program spans four main research areas: 1. Machine vision, specifically real-time and robust object tracking and hand gesture understanding 2. Advanced force, tactile and vision control, 3. Machine learning, and 4. Sensor fusion. An overall architecture is proposed, containing three sub-systems: 1). Efficient visual tracking and motion estimation; 2). Interaction framework; and 3). Advanced control in manipulation.

In the proposed architecture, the efficient visual tracking provides real-time and robust object tracking and motion estimation results to the vision-based control. The proposed interaction framework contains a knowledge base that describes tasks, and a high-level interpreter that can provide references for pose, force and tactile information in a given task. Also, an advanced control system will be developed, which will achieve the alignment of hand with respect to the object according to the suggested pose by the high-level task interpreter, and a position-force-tactile controller to provide robust and stable manipulation during the contact.

The proposed program will lead to innovative interaction framework for an autonomous robotic system in manipulation, efficient optical tracking in motion and motion estimation, and human-like-manipulation by developing an advanced position-force-tactile controller with an interaction framework. The research results in the proposed program will have significant potential for application in many practical areas including search and rescue, homecare and assistive robots. The developed intelligent autonomous robots are applicable in industry and in daily life, leading to improved work efficiency, reduced workload for humans, and effective execution of tasks that require heavy duty machinery. The developed technologies are expected to result in significant progress in robotics research, particularly concerning perception, interaction and manipulation, and provide new research directions in autonomous robotics.