Healthcare Robotics Lab: Recent submissions
Now showing items 1-20 of 49
-
Material Recognition from Heat Transfer given Varying Initial Conditions and Short-Duration Contact
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015)When making contact with an object, a robot can use a tactile sensor consisting of a heating element and a temperature sensor to recognize the object’s material based on conductive heat transfer from the tactile sensor ... -
Multimodal Execution Monitoring for Anomaly Detection During Robot Manipulation
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2016-05)Online detection of anomalous execution can be valuable for robot manipulation, enabling robots to operate more safely, determine when a behavior is inappropriate, and otherwise exhibit more common sense. By using ... -
Towards Assistive Feeding with a General-Purpose Mobile Manipulator
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2016-05)General-purpose mobile manipulators have the potential to serve as a versatile form of assistive technology. However, their complexity creates challenges, including the risk of being too difficult to use. We present a ... -
Finding and Navigating to Household Objects with UHF RFID Tags by Optimizing RF Signal Strength
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2014-09)We address the challenge of finding and navigating to an object with an attached ultra-high frequency radio- frequency identification (UHF RFID) tag. With current off-the- shelf technology, one can affix ... -
Inferring Object Properties from Incidental Contact with a Tactile-Sensing Forearm
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-09)Whole-arm tactile sensing enables a robot to sense properties of contact across its entire arm. By using this large sensing area, a robot has the potential to acquire useful information from incidental contact that ... -
Informing Assistive Robots with Models of Contact Forces from Able-Bodied Face Wiping and Shaving
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2012-09)Hygiene and feeding are activities of daily living (ADLs) that often involve contact with a person's face. Robots can assist people with motor impairments to perform these tasks by holding a tool that makes contact with ... -
Haptic Classification and Recognition of Objects Using a Tactile Sensing Forearm
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2012-10)In this paper, we demonstrate data-driven inference of mechanical properties of objects using a tactile sensor array (skin) covering a robot's forearm. We focus on the mobility (sliding vs. fixed), compliance (soft vs. ... -
ROS Commander (ROSCo): Behavior Creation for Home Robots
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-05)We introduce ROS Commander (ROSCo), an open source system that enables expert users to construct, share, and deploy robot behaviors for home robots. A user builds a behavior in the form of a Hierarchical Finite State Machine ... -
The Wouse: A Wearable Wince Detector to Stop Assistive Robots
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2012-09)Persons with severe motor impairments depend heavily upon caregivers for the performance of everyday tasks. Ongoing work is exploring the potential of giving motor-impaired users control of semi-autonomous assistive mobile ... -
In-Hand Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for Robotic Manipulation
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-05)We present a unique multi-antenna RFID reader (a sensor) embedded in a robot's manipulator that is designed to operate with ordinary UHF RFID tags in a short-range, near-field electromagnetic regime. Using specially designed ... -
Improving robot manipulation with data-driven object-centric models of everyday forces
(Georgia Institute of TechnologySpringer Verlag, 2013-06)Based on a lifetime of experience, people anticipate the forces associated with performing a manipulation task. In contrast, most robots lack common sense about the forces involved in everyday manipulation tasks. In this ... -
Reaching in clutter with whole-arm tactile sensing
(Georgia Institute of TechnologySage, 2013-04)Clutter creates challenges for robot manipulation, including a lack of non-contact trajectories and reduced visibility for line-of-sight sensors. We demonstrate that robots can use whole-arm tactile sensing to perceive ... -
An investigation of responses to robot-initiated touch in a nursing context
(Georgia Institute of TechnologySpringer Verlag, 2013-10)Physical human-robot interaction has the potential to be useful in a number of domains, but this will depend on how people respond to the robot’s actions. For some domains, such as healthcare, a robot is likely to initiate ... -
Autonomously learning to visually detect where manipulation will succeed
(Georgia Institute of TechnologySpringer Verlag, 2013-09)Visual features can help predict if a manipulation behavior will succeed at a given location. For example, the success of a behavior that flips light switches depends on the location of the switch. We present methods that ... -
Whole-arm Tactile Sensing for Beneficial and Acceptable Contact During Robotic Assistance
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-06)Many assistive tasks involve manipulation near the care-receiver's body, including self-care tasks such as dressing, feeding, and personal hygiene. A robot can provide assistance with these tasks by moving its end effector ... -
Older Adults Medication Management in the Home: How can Robots Help?
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-03)Successful management of medications is critical to maintaining healthy and independent living for older adults. However, medication non-adherence is a common problem with a high risk for severe consequences [5], which can ... -
Tactile Sensing over Articulated Joints with Stretchable Sensors
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-04)Biological organisms benefit from tactile sensing across the entire surfaces of their bodies. Robots may also be able to benefit from this type of sensing, but fully covering a robot with robust and capable tactile sensors ... -
Fast Reaching in Clutter While Regulating Forces Using Model Predictive Control
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-10)Moving a robot arm quickly in cluttered and unmodeled workspaces can be difficult because of the inherent risk of high impact forces. Additionally, compliance by itself is not enough to limit contact forces due to ... -
Rapid Categorization of Object Properties from Incidental Contact with a Tactile Sensing Robot Arm,
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-10)We demonstrate that data-driven methods can be used to rapidly categorize objects encountered through incidental contact on a robot arm. Allowing incidental contact with surrounding objects has benefits during manipulation ... -
Robots for Humanity: A Case Study in Assistive Mobile Manipulation
(Georgia Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013-03)Assistive mobile manipulators have the potential to one day serve as surrogates and helpers for people with disabilities, giving them the freedom to perform tasks such as scratching an itch, picking up a cup, or socializing ...