This interdisciplinary project, developing infrastructure for sensorimotor integration that fosters new studies and enhances existing work in the area of manipulation for robotics and human-machine systems, aims to offer a publicly available systems framework, including software, mechatronics, and integrated hardware. Enforcing a general development approach that can be easily extended to other robotic and human-machine applications, two complementary robotics platforms will built addressing two different application domains: a . Bimanual dexterous manipulation system with integrated environment sensing and the capability for modeling rigid objects commonly found in human environments, and . Teleoperated surgical robotic system with integrated sensors that can acquire patient-specific deformable tissue models. Moreover, via the project's website, dissemination is planned for: . Open-source software for real-time system control and sensor/model/manipulation/display integration; . Design of a complementary mechatronic firewire controller board that includes A/D, D/A, encoders, amplifiers, and low-level control capabilities via FPGS, and . Detailed descriptions of hardware integration, including WAM arms, Barrett hands, a tactile sensing suite from Pressure Profile Systems, surgical robots, cameras, ultrasound, OCT, a vision-based tracking system, visual and haptic displays, and more.
Broader Impact: Integrated robotic systems that fuse multimodal sensory information to enhance models and manipulate the environment positively impact human lives, particularly in health care, safety, and human assistance. The research also impacts related disciplines, including neuroscience, rehabilitation, and surgery. Researchers will have access to open software and designs. The platforms clearly impact education, people at many career stages, from high school students to senior faculty. The system, and detailed directions on how to produce it, will be made available. The design framework will be used in undergraduate classes in conjunction with existing educational hardware; experimental platforms will be used for course projects. Visiting students and faculty (including WISE girls) will make positive use of the integrated testbeds. There is an ongoing collaboration with Morgan State U. Involving REU and RET participants, outreach is well planned. The dissemination plan includes an active web site; the software will be made available via open-source repository. Furthermore, the website documents all hardware and respective vendors.
The greatest promise of robotics research is to create machines capable of moving and manipulating in complex unstructured environments, thereby reducing danger and drudgery for and extending the reach of humans. Fulfilling this promise requires the integration of several crucial ingredients, including sensing, modeling, computation, and manipulation. In this Major Research Instrumentation project, we developed an infrastructure for sensorimotor integration that enables advanced experimentation for robotics research using a wide variety of physical robot platforms. Our publicly available systems framework, including software, mechatronics, and integrated hardware is available at http://infrastructure.lcsr.jhu.edu. This site provides technical details and downloads related to: (1) open-source software for real-time system control and sensor/model/manipulation/display integration, (2) the design of a complementary mechatronic firewire controller board that includes analog-digital and digital-analog conversions, position encoding, voltage and current amplifiers, and low-level control capabilities via Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and (3) descriptions of hardware integration, including commercial and custom-designed robotic devices, human-robot interfaces, and sensors. Using this framework, two complementary robotics research platforms were built at The Johns Hopkins University: (1) a bimanual dexterous manipulation system with integrated environment sensing and the capability for modeling rigid objects commonly found in human environments, and (2) a teleoperated surgical robotic system with integrated sensing that builds upon an existing clinical platform, the da Vinci Surgical System. These physical systems have been shared among researchers at Johns Hopkins University and are available to visiting researchers from other institutions. In addition, other universities and companies are now building upon this infrastructure for a wide variety of research projects. Robotics research enabled by this infrastructure includes intelligent assistance modes and novel user interfaces for robot-assisted surgery, teleoperation of robots designed for space operations, evaluation of control methods for prosthetic arms. The intellectual merit of this project is the creation of a new set of tools for researchers to accelerate the development of advanced robotic manipulation platforms. The project also has significant broader impacts. Integrated robotic systems that fuse multimodal sensory information to enhance models and manipulate the environment will positively impact human lives, particularly in health care, safety, and human assistance. The robotics research resulting from this infrastructure directly impacts several related disciplines, including space science, neuroscience, rehabilitation, and surgery. Researchers worldwide have access to the open source software and designs, accelerating the pace of robotics research while encouraging experimentation. The dissemination of this research is allowing students at all levels to learn about robotic systems, and students are using the infrastructure to jump-start their research.
