Professor Sethu Vijayakumar looks at flexible and safe autonomous mobile manipulation robots for use in human-centred environments by making fundamental contributions in cognitive mechatronic technologies as part of his new H2020 project, HARMONY. The work will contribute to the wider consortium with the project partners: ETH Zurich, TU Delft, University of Bonn, University of Twente, CREATE, ABB and others. [scald=4566:sdl_editor_representation {"alt":"Harmony","caption":""}] The vision of Harmony is to enable robust, flexible and safe autonomous mobile manipulation technology for use in human-centred environments. The team will need to make several fundamental contributions to existing cognitive mechatronic technologies, i.e. a combination of better machines as well as better action and awareness. The success of the project also relies on integrating these technologies into a user-intuitive framework, ultimately enabling robotic mobile manipulation systems that can integrate seamlessly into our existing spaces without the need to fully re-engineer our environments for robot operation. The consortium will develop perception to formalise an object-based world representation; robotic localisation and mapping for an object-based environment; motion planning to provide adaptive, congestion-free motion plans in human-centred spaces; learning methods for grasping and manipulation from demonstration via an immersive control interface; robust and compliant whole-body motion planning and control for interacting with unknown objects; and human-robot interaction to deliver safety and acceptability recommendations for the use of mobile manipulators in human-centred environments. The target use cases lie in the healthcare domain and these introduce additional requirements to the project outcomes. Thus, the objectives of Harmony will address both scientific/technical advancements as well as ethical/regulatory issues. Both play an important role in promoting industry take-up and social acceptance and a combined assessment will substantially elevate the tangible outcomes of the project. This article was published on 2024-12-08
