392140 Projekt "Prototyping Human-Robot-Interaction" (PjS) (SoSe 2017)

Summary
Immersive life-sized simulation of robots in a CAVE, to enable a simulation and prototyping of human-robot-interaction.

Project Background & Aims
Designing robots is a complex process, which typically is realized by a co-evolution of hardware and software components. Designing and developing the hardware, however, is a complex task and in the beginning of a research project it is often difficult to estimate how the robot should look like and how he should behave in certain situations. An immersive rapid prototyping environment could help designers for human-robot interaction to model and test their ideas in very early stages of a project. This may include testing different models of appearance but also the evaluation of more complex and even dynamic interaction patterns.

Project Description
The aim of the project is to realize an immersive prototyping environment for interactions with the Meka robotic platform in the CITEC CAVE. A 3D model of Meka is already in preparation and may be used by the project. In a first iteration, the 3D Meka model should be connected to a motion capturing system, so that a human wizard-of-oz may control the Meka remotely. This will enable first human-robot interaction studies. In a second step, the Meka model will be connected to the robotic operation system of the real Meka and by thus may simulate actions or visualize the live sensory data collected by the real Meka robot. A small experiment will be implemented to evaluate the system.

The core/required features of the project are

• 3D models of the interaction environment of the Meka robot for the evaluation scenario
• 3D visualizations of sensory data
• Motion capturing for a wizard-of-oz control of the robot
• Connection between the InstantReality framework and the RSB/ROS system for robot control
• Evaluation of the simulation

For the connection to the robot operating system, knowledge of C++ could be an advantage.

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen, notwendige Vorkenntnisse

Previous participation in the lecture on Virtual Reality is required.