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| Release:
Immediate Contact: Patrick J. Callahan |
March
1, 2004 |
UMass Robotics Team Explores Autonomous SegwayFederal grant funds research into new applications for a balancing robot AMHERST, Mass. - Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Computer Science Department are implementing new sensors and computer control software to create an autonomous Segway Human Transporter. The research is funded by a grant to Professor Rod Grupen, computer science, from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through its Mobile Autonomous Robot Software program. The Segway Human Transporter (HT) balances itself using gyroscopes much the same way that an inverted broomstick can be balanced on the palm of one's hand. The Segway Robotic Mobility Platform (RMP) has been modified by Segway for use as an autonomous robot platform. The UMass team is one of a dozen across the country working with the modified Segways under the DARPA program to see what these dynamically stable platforms can do. The goal is to develop a sophisticated mobile platform that might be used in situations where a human would be in danger, or where performance and mobility are needed. At UMass, the team of researchers mounted a digital camera and a distance-sensing laser system to the Segway for use in guiding it around objects and towards goal locations in an unkown environment. The Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at UMass is using their RMP to investigate its potential for high performance tracking tasks - a kind of robotic "mule" that can follow human leaders or just navigate its own way to rendevous points. Oliver Brock, assistant professor of computer science and a member of the research team, says, "DARPA is considering applications that equip these machines with mobile life support systems and litters for transporting injured people from disaster areas or battlefields. Our Segway is capable of a number of skills necessary in order to transport injured people autonomously: avoiding obstacles, detecting impassable terrain, finding new routes, and following leaders." Such a device that might take medics out of harm's way, towing army litters and perhaps even Life Support for Trauma and Transport (LSTAT) medical systems one day. Andrew H. Fagg, senior research scientist in computer science and another member of the team, says the goal is to develop a versatile autonomous platform for use in a variety of applications. "We are working to extend these techniques to allow the robots to automatically perform search-and-rescue tasks with limited human interaction. This will allow many robots to be used to find survivors in damaged buildings, giving human rescuers a good sense of where help is needed and where the hazards are even before they enter." What's next? The UMass team is considering putting robotic arms and hands on the RMP platform to create high performance robots that are the same physical scale as humans. "When robots can occupy the same space as humans without being obtrusive, can use our tools, stairways, and open doors, then we will see a whole new array of applications. Robots will be capable of collaborating with us, and learning over their entire life span. Not only that, but what they have learned can be transplanted into their successors," says Grupen. Robots like this may one day be assistants around the home or the hospital, exploring distant planets, or simply keeping people out of harm's way. -30- Contact
Rod Grupen at 413/545-3280 or grupen@cs.umass.edu |
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