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Pointing gestures for Cooperative Human-Robot Manipulation Tasks in Unstructured Environments

  • Author / Creator
    Perez Quintero, Camilo A
  • In recent years, robots have started to migrate from industrial to unstructured human environments, some examples include home robotics, search and rescue robotics, assistive robotics and service robotics. However, this migration has been at a slow pace and with only a few successes. One key reason is that current robots do not have the capacity to interact well with humans in dynamic environments. Finding natural communication mechanisms that allow humans to effortlessly interact and collaborate with robots is a fundamental research direction to integrate robots into our daily living. In this thesis, we research pointing gestures for cooperative human-robot manipulation tasks in unstructured environments. By interacting with a human, the robot can solve tasks that are too complex for current artificial intelligence agents and autonomous control systems. Inspired by human-human manipulation interaction, in particular how humans use pointing and gestures to simplify communication during collaborative manipulation tasks; we developed three novel non-verbal pointing based interfaces for human-robot collaboration. 1) Spatial pointing interface: In this interface, both human and robot are collocated and the communication format is done through gestures. We studied human pointing gesturing in the context of human manipulation and using computer vision, we quantified accuracy and precision of human pointing in household scenarios. Furthermore, we designed a robot and vision system that is able to see, interpret and act using a gesture-based language. 2) Assistive vision-based interface: We designed an intuitive 2D image-based interface for upper body disabled persons to manipulate daily household objects through an assistive robotic arm (both human and robot are collocated sharing the same environment). The proposed interface reduces operation complexity by providing different levels of autonomy to the end user. 3) Vision-Force Interface for Path Specification in Tele-Manipulation: This is a remote visual interface that allows a user to specify in an on-line fashion a path constraint to a remote robot. By using the proposed interface the operator is able to guide and control a 7-DOF remote robot arm through the desired path using only 2 DOF. We validate each of the proposed interfaces through user studies. The proposed interfaces explore the important direction of letting robots and humans work together and the importance of using a good communication channel/interface during the interaction. Our research involved the integration of several knowledge areas. In particular, we studied and developed algorithms for vision control, object detection, object grasping, object manipulation and human-robot interaction.

  • Subjects / Keywords
  • Graduation date
    Fall 2017
  • Type of Item
    Thesis
  • Degree
    Doctor of Philosophy
  • DOI
    https://doi.org/10.7939/R3N29PM63
  • License
    This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.
  • Language
    English
  • Institution
    University of Alberta
  • Degree level
    Doctoral
  • Department
  • Supervisor / co-supervisor and their department(s)
  • Examining committee members and their departments
    • Martin Jagersand(Computing Science)
    • Hong Zhang (Computing Science)
    • Elizabeth Croft (UBC, Mechanical Engineering)
    • Patrick Pilarski (Computing Science)
    • Mahdi Tavakoli (Electrical and Computer Engineering)