四足助手机器人实现随需辅助,提升轮椅使用者独立性。
Beyond Cybathlon: On-demand Quadrupedal Assistance for People with Limited Mobility
- 采用共享自主控制,结合半自动任务执行与远程操控
- 在家庭环境中完成多种操作,任务完成时间与满意度达先进水平
- 适合行动受限者使用,降低操作心理负担
辅助机器人有望提升因行动能力受限或长期依赖轮椅人群的独立性。现有将机械臂安装于电动轮椅的方案虽能扩展移动能力,但导致体积增大、轮椅灵活性下降。本文提出一种按需触发的四足辅助机器人系统,采用共享自主控制策略,融合半自动任务执行与人工遥控。该系统具备移动性,可随时提供帮助,并能独立完成自主导航与拾取放置任务,支持语义感知与避障。遥控方面,设计口控操纵杆接口,使行动不便者可精准操控末端执行器。我们在2024年Cybathlon辅助机器人竞赛中展示系统,并在家庭环境中验证其性能,测量任务完成时间与用户满意度。结果表明,该系统能应对广泛任务,包括精细操作;用户研究证实,更高程度的机器人自主性显著减轻操作者的认知负荷。本系统在主观评价上达到当前最优水平,同时赋予操作者更大自主权和更强的操作灵巧性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Background: Assistance robots have the potential to increase the independence of people who need daily care due to limited mobility or being wheelchair-bound. Current solutions of attaching robotic arms to motorized wheelchairs offer limited additional mobility at the cost of increased size and reduced wheelchair maneuverability. Methods: We present an on-demand quadrupedal assistance robot system controlled via a shared autonomy approach, which combines semi-autonomous task execution with human teleoperation. Due to the mobile nature of the system it can assist the operator whenever needed and perform autonomous tasks independently, without otherwise restricting their mobility. We automate pick-and-place tasks, as well as robot movement through the environment with semantic, collision-aware navigation. For teleoperation, we present a mouth-level joystick interface that enables an operator with reduced mobility to control the robot's end effector for precision manipulation. Results: We showcase our system in the \textit{Cybathlon 2024 Assistance Robot Race}, and validate it in an at-home experimental setup, where we measure task completion times and user satisfaction. We find our system capable of assisting in a broad variety of tasks, including those that require dexterous manipulation. The user study confirms the intuition that increased robot autonomy alleviates the operator's mental load. Conclusions: We present a flexible system that has the potential to help people in wheelchairs maintain independence in everyday life by enabling them to solve mobile manipulation problems without external support. We achieve results comparable to previous state-of-the-art on subjective metrics while allowing for more autonomy of the operator and greater agility for manipulation.
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