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Service robotics

Prof. Alessandro De Luca

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 Some application domains

!  extreme environments !  mine exploration

!  space !  de-mining
underwater
!  civil and naval construction
! 

!  medical robotics
!  automatic refueling
!  assistive
!  museum guide
!  rehabilitative
!  surgical !  fire fighting

!  home cleaning !  inspection and surveillance

!  agriculture !  emergency rescue

!  lawn mowing !  entertainment
!  food industry !  humanoids

professional & personal service robots

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 Service robots on the market!

Bluebotics Esatroll - Paquito 2.0 Yujin GoCart2

logistics in factory floor elderly and health care Cyberdyne HAL
exoskeleton for walking

Vorwerk Thymio educational

vacuum cleaner mobile robot
Lely Vector automated feeding
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 Space robotics

•  DLR Rotex robot arm in a set of

•  NASA Sojourner, first robot
experiments of the Spacelab-D2
to explore Mars in 1997
mission on the Columbia shuttle
in 1993

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 Space robotics

video video

wheels untrapping assembly tasks and

on sandy soil catching floating objects
with Rotex
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 Space robotics
•  robotic arm SSRMS (Canadarm) in
operation on the Space Shuttle, with
outstretch of about 17 meters

•  service manipulator SPDM (Dextre)

on the International Space Station
(ISS), mounted on a supporting rail
and used to refuel satellites

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 Robots on ISS

video video

Canadarm2 delivering Destiny Lab

service manipulator and Robonaut
from Space Shuttle Endevour to ISS
on the ISS (artistic views)
(about 2007)

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 Underwater robotics

•  typically actuated by thrusters

(directional forces on the tail)
•  cannot translate sideways
(“maneuvers” are necessary)

•  Odyssey-IV (MIT)

•  Odin-III, omni-directional •  ROMEO in Antarctica (CNR,

(University of Hawaii) Automazione Navale, Genova)
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 Underwater robotics

Ansaldo underwater arm

performing a cable hooking task
(SAUVIM project)

video
video

UBC Gavia underwater robot

(University of British Columbia)

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 Underwater robotics

•  Aqua robot, amphibious robotic vehicle (McGill University)

•  size and weight: 50x65x13 cm, 18 kg

•  locomotion: through six independently actuated flippers
•  maximum depth: 37 m
•  sensors: two cameras (front/back), acoustic sensor for localization
(sonar), tri-ocular sensor (structured light)
•  power source: 48V lithium battery

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 Outdoor exploration

•  the LAMA robot at CNRS-LAAS (Toulouse) is a french-russian cooperation

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 Volcanology

video video

RoboVolc vehicles on the surface

of the Etna volcano:
wheeled and tracked robots
(University of Catania, 2003)

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 De-mining

•  teleoperated mobile robot on •  PEMEX lightweight anti-personnel

tracks used by the police for mine detector (EPFL, Lausanne)
bomb disposal •  weight: 16 kg, max 6 kg for wheel
•  two 70 W DC motors (vel 2 m/s)
•  oscillating sensorized head

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 Medical robotics
patient aid

•  MOVAID project for the aid of disabled people

in home activities (Scuola Sup Sant’Anna, Pisa)

•  deambulation support system

PAM-AID (Trinity College, Ireland)
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 MOVAID project

video video

domestic activities using the 8R Dexter arm

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 Medical Robotics
rehabilitative

•  robotic arm with shoulder and elbow having full mobility and with a
gripper hand (Pittsburgh University)
•  in tests on monkeys (with immobilized upper limbs), motion commands
sent to the arm by the central nervous system (brain) are measured by
a set of electrodes and used to command the robotic arm
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 Medical robotics
rehabilitative

•  commercialized by Ossur (Iceland)

•  a prosthesis sensorized at the knee (angle

and force), capable of processing sensor
data and of extracting a gait model of the
user, so as to adapt its dynamical behavior
(knee motion and stiffness)

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 Medical robotics
rehabilitative

•  "RUPERT" Robotic Upper Extremity Repetitive Therapy (Arizona State

University + Kinetic Muscles, Inc.)
•  sustains the human arm with pneumatic muscles (McKibben actuators)
•  it can be programmed for the execution of cyclic exercises of rehabilitation
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 Exoskeletons

video

SARCOS master-slave for teleoperation

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 Medical robotics
hospital and nursing

video

•  HELPmate mobile robot (USA) •  user interface of the

works in hospitals as auxiliary Care-O-Bot robot nurse
personnel (IPA Fraunhofer, Germany)
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 Surgical robotics

command station

overview of the operating room

(haptic) interface
•  da Vinci© system (Intuitive Surgical Inc.)
[see the course “Medical Robotics”]
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 Surgical robotics

•  Robodoc by Integrated Surgical Systems (USA)

was used first for orthopedic surgery (ankle replacement)

•  Steady-Hand force-assisted system (Johns Hopkins Univ)

improves accuracy and repeatability of surgeons allowing
task-driven compliance
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 Surgical robotics

•  emulation of a laser brain surgery operation and

graphic rendering of a surgery intervention on the spinal cord
patient is first “mapped” off-line by a series of CAT scans;
data are then “localized” in the actual operation field
(IPA Fraunhofer)
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 Home cleaning

•  vacuum cleaner robot •  commercial video

Trilobite by Electrolux (Sweden) iRobot Roomba 560 (USA)
‐now available everywhere!
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 Cleaning robot contest

•  competition among robot vacuum cleaners

in home environments (IROS’02, Lausanne)
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 Cleaning of external surfaces

•  Skywash cleans civil airplane bodies •  a robot prototype for cleaning large
and is “the largest robot worldwide” glass windows of civil buildings
(AEG/Dornier/FhG-IPA/Putzmeister)

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 Lawn mowers

video

•  Automower autonomous robot by Husqvarna (Sweden)

has low power consumption (biocut) and solar recharge

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 Food industry

video

•  AdeptOne SCARA robot with

•  Ulixes robot by IMT (Germany) 4-sausage gripper
aligns 10000 sausages per hour
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 Automatic refueling

•  cooperation of Reis Robotics,

Mercedes, BMW, and IPA Fraunhofer

•  Smart Pump system (USA)

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 Automatic refueling

•  OSCAR robot (France) for gasoline refuel

of flees of transportation busses
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 Automatic refueling

a “kit” is available for all car models:

tank cap, transponder, pipe union

Autofill system in two tank stations of

OK (Mörgby, Sweden) and BP (USA)

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 Inspection and surveillance

•  5-dof Scorbot arm mounted on a

ATRV-JR (fixed wheels, skid-steering vehicle)
•  6-dof Puma arm mounted on the
Nomad XR400 (multiple steering two examples of
wheels, synchro-driven) mobile manipulators

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 Inspection and surveillance

•  Hilare 2bis mobile robot (LAAS), with trailer and manipulator arm,
and its localization on a indoor map
sensors: encoders (on wheels and arm joints),
ultrasound, SICK laser, and camera on end-effector gripper
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 Inspection and surveillance

•  motion planning of a robotized inspection task

inside an electricity power plant (Move3D simulation)

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 Mine exploration

•  Groundhog (Carnegie Mellon)

•  750 kg, double axes, articulated
•  movable SICK laser (rangefinder)
•  gas and immersion sensors
•  SLAM algorithm (Simultaneous
Localization And Mapping)

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 RoboCup and RoboRescue

•  RoboCup middle-size league •  Orpheus robot won the RoboRescue

(wheeled mobile robots, here (exploration and search of victims
with omni-directional vision) in a disaster environment)

2003 edition, Padova Fair

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 DARPA Grand Challenge

the “Ghostrider” motorcycle

5 SICK lasers for mapping and localization testing in Nevada
on the 2005 winning VW Touareg “Stanley”

•  competition for fully autonomous vehicles on a long mixed-type track

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 DARPA Grand Challenge
video interview video

S. Thrun of Stanford Racing A. Levandowski of Blue Team

(Stanford Univ+VW America+many more) (LaRaison Inc+Univ Berkeley+Texas A&M)

Stanley navigation: Ghostrider navigation:

GPS, laser scanners, GPS, inertial unit, motorcycle
vision, radar dynamics, stereovision
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 Free time

•  bartender robot by Erhardt+Abt (Germany)

•  the robotic ball boy (RWI and Carnegie Mellon Univ, USA) that won
in 1996 the “Clean up the tennis court!” competition of the AAAI
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 Robots filling a glass of beer
video

two cooperating ABB robots

a single KUKA robot

video
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 Museum guidance

•  three mobile robots for museum guidance

(Museum für Kommunikation, Berlin)
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 Entertainment

•  the Anaconda robot (Edge Innovations, USA) weights various tons,

has 60 artificial spinal vertebrae, is 12 meters long,
and is actuated by hydraulic motors so as to reach a speed of up to 60 km/h
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 Human motion replication

•  the anthropomorphic robot by Sarcos Entertainment Systems (USA)

replicates the movements of a human wearing a sensorized exoskeleton

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 Human-Robot Interaction

•  physical and cognitive interaction between a Sarcos robot and a human

intrinsic mechanical compliance in the robot structure
is here more important than accuracy in motion execution

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 Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

video video

cognitive interaction (cHRI) physical interaction (pHRI)

in Robot@CWE EU Project in PHRIENDS EU Project

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 Human-robot collaboration

•  Mr. Helper (Tohoku Univ) •  CoBot scooter-like robot

collaborates in carrying heavy for mounting car doors
and/or large loads (General Motors)

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 Robot hands

•  the UBHand series of robot dexterous hands (Univ Bologna)

3 fingers with 9 degrees of freedom, tendon actuation,
supporting palm, and tactile sensors on all phalanges

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 Anthropomorphic UBHand IV

video

data glove
for motion
capturing

•  the UBHand IV has deformable elements as joint hinges (compliant mechanisms);

the endo-skeletal structure with 5 fingers may host distributed sensors
and continuous compliant cover (G. Vassura, Univ Bologna)

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 New robot hand for the iCub

video

•  iCub robot is like a 3.5y old child, developed by IIT Genova in 2005
in the RobotCub EU Project (platform distributed openly, with open-source SW)

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 Integration of robot hand + arm

•  the complete UBHand II, with electrical motors

and electronics presented at EXPO92 in Seville

•  integration in the forearm

of the Unimation PUMA 560

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 ... “minimalistic” solutions
video

•  5D manipulation of objects
•  1 motor only for the Soft Hand,
having arbitrary form, using
only two linear actuators and an articulated and compliant robotic hand
sensorized contact surfaces of human size and synergy
(Univ Pisa, about 15 years ago) (Centro “E. Piaggio”, Univ Pisa – IIT, 2014)

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 Biomorphic robots

•  biomorphic robots by MIT Leg Lab, USA:

Troody dinosaur and Flamingo bird

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 Four-legged locomotion

•  AIBO ERS-210 by Sony, playing on the soccer field of RoboCup

16 actuated dofs with encoders, color camera, 3 accelerometers,
ultrasound sensors, tactile and micro-switch (feet), battery: everything in 1.6 kg!

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 Anthropomorphic upper limbs

•  Justin robot has 7+7+3 degrees of •  the robot developed in the

freedom + many dofs in the two hands German national project
(DLR, Germany) on humanoids
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 Justin robotic system
@ DLR

video

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 Humanoid robots

•  Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

•  Pino by ZMP (2003)

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 Humanoid robots

•  the ASIMO project by Honda started in 1986

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 ASIMO in action

ASIMO first and

climbing stairs second series
(Robodex 2003) (smaller size)

video video

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 Humanoid robots

•  Sony SDR-3X
(about 60 cm)
•  HRP-2 •  humanoid robot
(58 kg, 150 cm, 30 dofs) (Q. Huang, PR China)
2002 Tokyo Univ

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 Sony Q-RIO

group dancing video (2003)

•  Sony Q-RIO
the first robot able to balance on a surf and stand up from the floor
(dead in 2006…)

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 Humanoid robots

height = 57 cm kinematic
weight = 4.5 kg description

•  NAO, Aldebaran Robotics

since 2008, replaces AIBO quadrupeds in RoboCup standard league

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 NAO playtime

Aldebaran Robotics
commercial video
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 … what about dynamic stability?

video

•  the One-Leg Hopper robot (MIT, USA) demonstrated back in 1982

the feasibility of maintaining a purely dynamic equilibrium during motion

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 we could go on and on, forever...

video
video

MIT planar two-legged

robot doing a flip (1984)
ping-pong with KUKA KR5 robot

the beauty of dynamics and juggling

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 Diffusion of service robots
for professional use

AGV/mobile robots
in manufacturing
environments and outside

World Robotics
Report 2017

"  main applications: logistic, defense (mostly, UAV), field robots (e.g., milking)
"  almost 60,000 (+24%) service robots for professional use sold in 2016
"  ~ 400,000 new service robots for professional use to be sold in 2018-20*
(+45% estimate over last period)
"  > 50% of professional service robots are manufactured in the Americas
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 Diffusion of service robots
for professional use

other applications: social (䚌), exoskeletons (䚌), medical systems (䚌), construction,
cleaning, inspection, agriculture, underwater, rescue...

... but most valuable market

public relation is medical robotics!
robots also expect
significant increase
in turnover (4.5 M$
in 2018-20*)

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 Diffusion of service robots
for personal/domestic use

"  personal/domestic robots market is

huge: hard to assess figures due
large variety in products and lifetime
"  6.8M units sold in 2016 (+25%), for
a value of 2.6 G$ (+15%)
"  forecast 2018-20*: 43M units
"  vacuum and floor cleaning robots
"  lawn-mowing robots
"  entertainment (e.g., Mindstorm) and
leisure
"  robots for elderly/handicap assistance
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 Diffusion of service robots
manufacturers by application areas and regions

"  75% of European service

robot suppliers are SMEs
"  many start ups ...

"  2/3 of all service robot suppliers

use ROS (& other Open Source
Systems)
"  key-technologies: perception,
human-machine interaction,
mechatronics, safety

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 Web sites
•  http://ieee-ras.org
The web site of IEEE-RAS (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers -
Robotics & Automation Society) with access to conferences, publications,
technical committees, etc. – become a student member of the IEEE-RAS !!
•  http://handbookofrobotics.org
Multimedia extension of the Springer Handbook of Robotics (2nd Ed, 2016),
with >700 free robotics videos of historical and state-of the-art value
•  http://www.eu-robotics.net
The new European Robotics AIBSL, with euRobotics Forum & Week, etc.
•  http://www.euron.org
EUropean RObotics research Network, with a gallery of robots, videos,
European robotics projects (no longer updated since 2012)
•  http://www.youtube.com/user/RoboticsLabSapienza
YouTube channel of DIAG Robotics Lab, with videos of our latest research
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