A ROBOTHUMAN Software System IMA Primitive Agent Hardware Interface A A A A A A A Human Agent Robot Agent System Architecture for Human- Robot Interaction Human Interaction Hardware System

Welcome to the Center for Intelligent Systems at the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. CIS conducts research on intelligent robotics and on intelligent manufacturing. Research Activities and CIS Links: Intelligent Robotics Lab Intelligent Manufacturing Recent Publications CIS-Affiliated Faculty, Students, and Alumni The CIS Newsletter Employment Opportunities Contact Information: Center for Intelligent Systems, Vanderbilt University Dr. Kazuhiko KawamuraDr. Kazuhiko Kawamura, Director Dr. Alan PetersDr. Alan Peters, Assistant Director Dr. Mitch WilkesDr. Mitch Wilkes, Assistant Director Florence (Flo) FottrellFlorence (Flo) Fottrell, Administrator Box 131 Station B Nashville, TN Phone: (615) (Lab), (615) (Office) Fax: (615) Other Links  U.S.-Japan Center Home Page U.S.-Japan Center Home Page  Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Vanderbilt University School of Engineering  IEEE RAS Service Robot Technical Committee IEEE RAS Service Robot Technical Committee

Research Projects under IRL Publications Papers Online People Faculty, Students, and Alumni Robot Links Link to Interesting Robot Sites Site Contents

Research Projects under IRL Publications Papers Online People Faculty, Students, and Alumni Robot Links Link to Interesting Robot Sites Site Contents Welcome Welcome to the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (IRL) at Vanderbilt University's School of Engineering! The IRL is a part of the Center for Intelligent Systems and conducts research on service robots and human/robot symbiosis. Contact Information: Director: Dr. Kazuhiko Kawamura Assistant Directors: Dr. M. Wilkes Dr. R.A. Peters II Research Faculty: Dr. G. Biswas Dr. D. Gaines Dr. D. Fisher Dr. P.K. Basu Administrator: Flo Fottrell Lab Manager: Mark Cambron Web Manager: Tamara RogersDr. Kazuhiko KawamuraDr. M. Wilkes Dr. R.A. Peters IIDr. G. Biswas Dr. D. Gaines Dr. D. Fisher Dr. P.K. BasuFlo FottrellMark CambronTamara Rogers Intelligent Robotics Lab Vanderbilt University Box 131 Station B Nashville, TN Phone: (615) Fax: (615)

Research Projects under IRL Publications Papers Online People Faculty, Students, and Alumni Robot Links Link to Interesting Robot Sites Site Contents Humanoids  ISAC ISAC Mobile Robots  HelpMate HelpMate Bio-Mimetic Control Systems  Associative Memory Associative Memory  Attention System Attention System  Sensory Systems Sensory Systems  Spreading Activation/Learning Spreading Activation/Learning  High Level Agent Structure High Level Agent Structure McKibben Artificial Muscles  Basics Basics  ISAC Arms ISAC Arms Rehabilitation Robotics  Rehab Robotics Rehab Robotics Industrial Automation  Intelligent Planners Intelligent Planners  Industrial Pick and Place Robot Industrial Pick and Place Robot  Remote Manufacturing Systems Remote Manufacturing Systems Intelligent Machine Architecture (IMA)  IMA IMA  IMA II IMA II Anthropomorphic Manipulators  PneuHand PneuHand  PneuHand II PneuHand II Robots & the Arts  Theremin Playing Theremin Playing Climber Robot  Robin Robin

ISAC is a dual-arm humanoid robot that was designed and built in the IRL as a research platform for service robotics. The system contains  Two pneumatic 6DOF SoftArms actuated by McKibben artificial muscles.  An air compressor and compressed air delivery system.  A Greifer gripper.  A four fingered, anthropomorphic dexterous manipulator, that we call the PneuHand, designed and built by the IRL.  Two force-torque sensors connected at the arm's wrist joints.  A Directed Perception pan-tilt platform modified in house for independent verge control of two color cameras.  Two 200 MHz Dual processor Pentium Pros. One controls grayscale image processing and the other controls the two SoftArms with two arm controller boards (built in house), and a multi-channel audio signal processor.  One 266 MHz Pentium-2 with two Imagenation color frame grabbers.  One 200 MHz Pentium Pro. The dual-arm system provides a test-bed to develop new technologies for user-to-robot and robot-to-user communications, including audio, visual, and gestural methods.

The Intelligent Robotics Lab is currently working to incorporate a mobile robot with the ISAC system. The Helpmate mobile robot was donated by Yaskawa Electric of Japan. Helpmate has been upgraded with the following new features:  A 400MHz Pentium II motherboard.  A 5DOF rubbertuator-actuated softarm.  A Lidar sensor for navigation.  A vision system, including CATCH and a PCI color frame grabber.  New control software, based on IMA.  Connection to the Internet via wireless Ethernet Helpmate will soon become an integral part of the ISAC system. A new software architechture (see related pages for IMA) will allow a combination of local autonomy and user direction, enabling Helpmate to navigate hallways and rooms to accomplish tasks. We are also using HelpMate as a test bed for IMA2, a revised version of IMA.

What Helpmate looked like before we got a hold of it.

A side/front view, showing the sonar arrays, and the arm just hanging there.

This is a rear view, showing the DC-to- AC converter (the black box on the "tailgate"), the air compressor (that red pumpkin-looking thing), the servo valve tree (in the middle), and the manipulator.

Previous SoftArm in a feeding task

ISAC, our dual- arm humanoid, in its original configuration (with the Greifer gripper, the FMA gripper, and the original CATCH pan/tilt/verge head)

A previous version of ISAC, with some of his tools.

 D.M. Wilkes, W.A. Alford, R.T. Pack, T.E. Rogers, E.E. Brown, Jr., R.A. Peters II, and K. Kawamura, “Service Robots for Rehabilitation And Assistance", Chapter 2 in Teodorescu and Jain, “Intelligent Systems and Techniques in Rehabilitation”, CRC Press, 1999.“Service Robots for Rehabilitation And Assistance"  W. A. Alford, T. Rogers, D. M. Wilkes, and K. Kawamura, "Multi-Agent System for a Human-Friendly Robot", Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC '99), pp , October 12-15, 1999, Tokyo, Japan."Multi-Agent System for a Human-Friendly Robot"  K. Kawamura, "Human-Robot Interaction for a Human-Friendly Robot: A Working Paper", Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on HUmanoid RObotics (HURO '99), pp , October 8-9, 1999, Tokyo, Japan."Human-Robot Interaction for a Human-Friendly Robot: A Working Paper"  A. Alford, S. Northrup, K. Kawamura, K-W. Chan, "Music Playing Robot", Proceedings of the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR '99), pp , August 29-31, 1999, Pittsburgh, PA."Music Playing Robot" Recent Publications 1999

 S. Charoenseang, A. Srikaew, D.M. Wilkes, and K. Kawamura, "3-D Collision Avoidance for the Dual-Arm Humanoid Robot", IASTED International Conference on Robotics and Manufacturing, Banff, Canada, July, 1998"3-D Collision Avoidance for the Dual-Arm Humanoid Robot"  D.M. Wilkes, A. Alford, R.T. Pack, T. Rogers, R.A. Peters II, and K. Kawamura, "Toward Socially Intelligent Service Robots", Applied Artificial Intelligence, An International Journal, vol. 12, pp , "Toward Socially Intelligent Service Robots"  A. Srikaew, M.E. Cambron, S. Northrup, R.A. Peters II, D.M. Wilkes, and K. Kawamura, "Humanoid Drawing Robot", IASTED International Conference on R obotics and Manufacturing, Banff, Canada, July, 1998."Humanoid Drawing Robot"  S. Charoenseang, A. Srikaew, D.M. Wilkes, and K. Kawamura, "Integrating Visual Feedback and Force Feedback in 3-D Collision Avoidance for a Dual-Arm Humanoid Robot", Proceedings of 1998 International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, California, USA, October, 1998."Integrating Visual Feedback and Force Feedback in 3-D Collision Avoidance for a Dual-Arm Humanoid Robot" Recent Publications 1998

Recent Publications 1997  D.M. Wilkes, R.T. Pack, W.A. Alford, and K. Kawamura, "HuDL, A Design Philosophy for Socially Intelligent Service Robots", working notes of the AAAI Symposium on Socially Intelligent Agents, November, 1997"HuDL, A Design Philosophy for Socially Intelligent Service Robots"  R.T. Pack, D.M. Wilkes, and K. Kawamura, "A Software Architecture for Integrated Service Robot Development", 1997 IEEE Conf. On Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Orlando, pp , September, 1997."A Software Architecture for Integrated Service Robot Development"  A. Alford, D. M. Wilkes, K. Kawamura, and R.T. Pack, "Flexible Human Integration for Holonic Manufacturing Systems", Proceedings of the World Manufacturing Congress, New Zealand, pp , November, 1997."Flexible Human Integration for Holonic Manufacturing Systems"  R.T. Pack, D. M. Wilkes, G. Biswas, and K. Kawamura, "Intelligent Machine Architecture for Object-Based System Integration", Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Waseda University, Japan, June 1997."Intelligent Machine Architecture for Object-Based System Integration"

 Motivated by desire for natural human-robot interaction  Encapsulates what the robot knows about the human  Identity  Location  Intentions Human Agent

 Model of the current human: description of the current human  Human activity: description of what the user is doing  User’s request: the nature of the interaction, the task the user request of the robot Human Agent Internal Model

Model of the Human  Name Stan  Emotion Happy  Command Watch me  Face Location (x,y,z) = (122, 34, 205)  Hand Locations (x,y,z) = (85, -10, 175) (x,y,z) = (175, 56, 186)

Model of the Human  Name Stan  Emotion Sad  Command Watch me  Face Location (x,y,z) = (122, 34, 205)  Hand Locations (x,y,z) = (85, -10, 175) (x,y,z) = (175, 56, 186) (x, y,z) Stan

 Detection module  Monitoring module  Identification module Human Agent Modules

Detection Module  Allows the robot to detect human presence  Uses multiple sensor modalities  IR motion sensor array  Speech recognition  Skin-color segmentation  Face detection

Monitoring Module  Keeps track of the detected human  Localization and tracking algorithms  Face tracking  Finger pointing gesture  Basic speech interface

Identification Module Under development  Attempts to identify detected human based on stored model and current model  Voice pattern comparison  Name  Height  Clothing color  Detects changes in dynamic model  Clothing color  Height