An interactive robot control environment for rehabilitation applications

Interactive robot systems are under active investigation as aids for people with impaired manipulating ability. Under the direction of a disabled operator, a robot can manipulate objects, thereby increasing the independence of the operator in home, school and work activities. This paper describes a high-level control language CURL developed to facilitate communication between a disabled operator and the task environment. CURL is a Windows-based application. Interactive robotics requires a different approach from mainstream robotics where humans are kept out of the robot's work area.

Towards a theory of sensory robotics

A partial review of some efforts in robotics research is presented. We identify two broad categories of work: one characterised by application-driven experimental engineering, the other by a more ‘scientific’ approach based on testing theoretical models through implementation. We argue that although the former represents some of the best practical results obtained to-date, this experiment-first-theory-later approach does not contribute to a homogeneous body of knowledge. If robotics is to make measured progress, sound theoretical ground is needed. We argue for a task-specific paradigm for future theoretical work founded on formal models. To this end, we present a general analysis of a sensory robotic system, and identify key elements that must be defined in any formal model before we can decide what sensory information is useful for a given task.

Concepts of Augmented Image Space and Transformed Feature Space for Efficient Visual Servoing of an “Eye-in-Hand Robot”

For efficient visual servoing of an “eye-in-hand” robot, the concepts of Augmented Image Space and Transformed Feature Space are presented in the paper. A formal definition of image features as functionals is given along with a technique to use defined image features for visual servoing. Compared with other known methods, the proposed concepts reduce the computational burden for visual feedback, and enhance the flexibility in describing the vision-based task. Simulations and real experiments demonstrate that the proposed concepts are useful and versatile tools for the industrial robot vision tasks, and thus the visual servoing problem can be dealt with more systematically.