Project Description
The PR2 Robotic Hand and Syntouch Sensor Real-Time Interface is a suite designed to facilitate the use of a Willow-Garage PR2 robot with BioTac® syntouch sensors attached to its hands (just one or both). The suite receives data from the PR2 robot and Syntouch sensors in real-time, and is capable of using that data for real-time graphing, calculations, and statistics. With all of this sensor data available in real-time, the suite will be capable of controlling the PR2 robot in new and innovative ways. This leads to the primary goal of this project, which is to learn about and make use of the capabilities of a robot that is capable of understanding the sense of touch.
The suite is a python plugin for rqt, and is fully integrated with ROS. Below you can see the suite in its current state, where the main menu and a data graphing subsystems are both loaded and docked into the main rqt window. Each button on the main menu is working, however the subsystems they load are still currently under development. In the near future we plan to complete several subsystems ("programs") that will depend on haptic feedback loops using real-time data. These subsystems will make the PR2 perform tasks such as picking up a fragile or brittle object and moving it to a different location, or detecting the pulse of a human by gently touching a person's arm.
Project Demonstration video.
Project Related Resources
The bolt haptics repository is a repository created and used by UPenn researchers with work done for the PR2 and syntouch sensors; the goals of the repository are very similar to the goals of this senior project.
This is simply the product/user manual for the Syntouch BioTac sensors. It provides product care and maintenance information. The manual also includes information about the built in sensors including sensor outputs and a circuit diagram, It also has all command types and samples of how to use them.
This website has the hardware specifications for the PR2. It lists out all of the parts used in the PR2 and has diagrams to show where they are on the PR2.
This website is a user-contributed to Wiki site for the Robot Operating System (ROS), and specifically its usage by the PR2 robot. It provides a large amount of information regarding design and implementation for ROS systems, and was an essential resource in the design/limitations of this interface.
Intelligent Assistive Robots: Recent Advances in Assistive Robotics for Everyday Activities.
This is our problem domain book which will allow any layperson to understand the field that our project is attempting to improve. The following is a description of the book: “This book deals with the growing challenges of using assistive robots in our everyday activities along with providing intelligent assistive services. The presented applications concern mainly healthcare and wellness such as helping elderly people, assisting dependent persons, habitat monitoring in smart environments, well-being, security, etc. These applications reveal also new challenges regarding control theory, mechanical design, mechatronics, portability, acceptability, scalability, security, etc.”
This is the user manual for the PR2 robot. It provides information on everything you need to know about the PR2. It provides safety overviews, design features, and how to install the software needed to get started. It also has all the information about all of the moving parts of the robot.
Authors
The PR2 Robotic Hand and Syntouch Sensor Real-Time Interface is under development by Team 14 of CS 426 (Spring 2016) at the University of Nevada, Reno. We are one of 20 teams that are working on a senior project in the Computer Science and Engineering department at UNR in Spring 2016.
Team 14 members:
- Aaron Whitehead (@bigmacstorm)
- Brandon Salmon (@exiledz)
- Edward Miles (@elmiles93)
- Shawn White (@smwhite)
Advisor and Instructor
Our advisor for this project is Dave Feil-Seifer (@davefeilseifer) from the Robot Research Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno. Our instructor for this course is Dr. Dascalu, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Contact
If you need to contact any of the developers of this project for any reason please feel free to email any or all of us from our emails which can be found on our github profiles.