The DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials held in December 2013 provided a landmark demonstration of dexterous mobile robots executing a variety of tasks aided by a remote human operator using only data from the robot's sensor suite transmitted over a constrained, fieldrealistic communications link. We describe the design considerations, architecture, implementation and performance of the software that Team MIT developed to command and control an Atlas humanoid robot. Our design emphasized human interaction with an efficient motion planner, where operators expressed desired robot actions in terms of affordances fit using perception and manipulated in a custom user interface. We highlight several important lessons we learned while developing our system on a highly compressed schedule.
Spinal cord and other local injuries often lead to partial paralysis while the brain stays fully functional. When this partial paralysis occurs in the hand, these individuals are not able to execute daily activities on their own even if their arms are functional. To remedy this problem, a lightweight, low-profile orthotic exoskeleton has been designed to restore dexterity to paralyzed hands. The exoskeleton’s movements are controlled by the user’s available electromyography (EMG) signals. The device has two actuators controlling the index finger flexion that can be used to perform a pinching motion against a fixed thumb. Using this orthotic device, a new control technique was developed to allow for a natural reaching and pinching sequence by utilizing the natural residual muscle activation patterns. To design this controller, two actuator control algorithms were explored with a quadriplegic (C5/C6) subject and it was determined that a simple binary control algorithm allowed for faster interaction with objects over a variable control algorithm. The binary algorithm was then used as an enabling algorithm to activate the exoskeleton movements when the natural sequence of muscle activities found a pattern related to a pinch. This natural pinching technique has shown significant promise toward realistic neural control of wearable robotic devices to assist paralyzed individuals.
The DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials held in December 2013 provided a landmark demonstration of dexterous mobile robots executing a variety of tasks aided by a remote human operator using only data from the robot's sensor suite transmitted over a constrained, fieldrealistic communications link. We describe the design considerations, architecture, implementation and performance of the software that Team MIT developed to command and control an Atlas humanoid robot. Our design emphasized human interaction with an efficient motion planner, where operators expressed desired robot actions in terms of affordances fit using perception and manipulated in a custom user interface. We highlight several important lessons we learned while developing our system on a highly compressed schedule.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.