AI empowered general purpose assistive robotiC system for dexterous object manipulation tHrough embodIed teleopeRation and shared cONtrol

• Applicant: Professor Jan Reinhard Peters, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442430069

Dexterous manipulation of objects is a core task in robotics. Because of the design complexity needed for robot controllers even for simple manipulation task, robots currently in use are mostly limited to specific tasks within known environment. Within the CHIRON project, we aim to develop an AI empowered general purpose robotic system for dexterous manipulation of complex and unknown objects in rapidly changing, dynamic and unpredictable real-world environments. This will be achieved through intuitive embodied robotic teleoperation under optimized shared-control between the human operator enhanced with an intuitive haptic interface and the robot controller empowered with AI-based vision and learning skills. The privileged use case of such a system is assistance for "stick-to-bed" patients or elders with limited physical ability in their daily life object manipulation tasks, e.g., fetching a bottle of water and pouring it into a glass, through an intuitive and embodied robot tele-operated by themself. Such object manipulations would be otherwise not possible for them.To make possible such an embodied tele-operated robotic system for dexterous manipulation, thus without any assumption about the object to be manipulated and the operating environment, the CHIRON project features unique innovations simultaneously on different AI applied domains: robotics, computer vision and machine learning.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France, Japan
• Major Instrumentation: Mobiles 2-händriges Robotersystem
• Instrumentation Group: 2320 Greif- und Hebewerkzeuge, Verladeeinrichtungen
• Partner Organisation: Agence Nationale de la Recherche / The French National Research Agency; Japan Science and Technology Agency; JST
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Liming Chen, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Yasuhisa Hasegawa