RoboTalk: a general robot control framework Can we access R2D2 & C3PO with the same control commands? Allen Yang Yang University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign H. Gonzales-Banos, V. Ng-Thow-Hing, J. E. Davis Honda Research Institute, Mountain View, CA

2 Copyright Lucasfilm Ltd. Motivation Mobile Robot with Pan-Tilt Camera Honda Asimo Humanoid Robot

3 Why do we need a motion specification? Difficulties for researchers in robotics: Industrial copyright Programs are not re-usable in different robot families, even different versions of same robot families Have to choose OS based on the drivers provided Not easy to share a robot remotely with other collaborators in different locations Motion Commands Windows?Linux?Mac OS? Embedded OS?

4 Project goals Whatever: (cross-model) Provide a network-enabled interface for Asimo which is independent of the controller libraries Access to other robots & simulators: Pioneer, Puma Whoever: (cross-platform) User interface must be cross-platform: support Unix, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Wherever: (cross-network) Good quality of service across the Internet.

5 Demo Videos

6 Contributions A robot specification standard One command interface Four command modes between client and server: Direct Delay Playback Broadcast Easy-to-change robot driver implementation on the server-end

7 Previous Work Player [R. Gerkey and A. Howard, 2003] Open Architecture Humanoid Robotics Platform (HRP) [F. Kanehiro, et al., 2004] Open Pino Project [ F. Yamasaki, et al., 2000] OROCOS [ Dedicated systems ARIA [robots.activmedia.com/ARIA/] Robonaut [H. Aldridge, et al., 2000] Athena [J. Biesiadecki, et al., 2001]

8 Why not others? Do not support humanoid robots Hard to change driver implementation Do not have network quality support Do not have protection mechanism for exotic robots

9 System Architecture System Overview Client/Server Structure Four Communication Modes

10 Architecture - Specification Standard Configuration Spec Command Spec Communication Spec Abstraction

11 Architecture - System Overview Client/Server... Client Server Asimo Library Pioneer Library Simulator Configuration Spec Command Spec Communication Spec

12 Architecture - Robotalk Server Server Daemon Robot Daemon Read and Write TCP/IP sockets Issue Robot Driver Calls CClientConnection Provide: Buffering, Scheduling, Panic, etc. Class Interface... CRobotDriver

13 Architecture - CClientConnection CClientConnection Command Queue Return Queue Playback Queue Read Write Input commands Feedback Priority Queues Server Daemon Robot Daemon

14 Architecture - CClient Read Daemon Return cache CClient Class Class Interface Commands to the server. (Blocking/Nonblocking) Feedback (Nonblocking) Broadcast cache Function calls

15 Architecture - Communication Modes Direct mode: blocking & instantaneous, for debug purposes Delay mode: nonblocking, instantaneous or delay Playback mode: nonblocking, adaptive caching based on channel quality Broadcast mode: periodic query feedback

16 Direct Mode ClientServer Sync system clock Clock Command Cache Robot Daemon Client Function call Cache Return Cache return

17 Delay Mode ClientServer Sync system clock Robot Daemon Client Cache Function call return Delay Command Cache Clock + Return Cache error signal

18 Playback Mode Client Cache Function call return Return Cache error signal Clock Playback Cache Command Cache Delay Robot Daemon ClientServer Length of the sequence

19 Broadcast Mode Client Cache Broadcast call return Command Cache Robot Daemon Return Cache data Delay

20 Conclusions Motivations System Structure Four Network Command Modes Future Extensions Exclusive control Data channels Controlling multiple humanoid robots Virtual humanoid robots

21 Virtual Humanoid Server Pioneer Library Camera Library Puma Library Site A Site B Virtual Humanoid

22 Thank you! Allen Yang: Hector Gonzales-Banos: Victor Ng-Thow-Hing: All videos available online: perception.csl.uiuc.edu/RoboTalk/