Technical ActivitiesReport

Kong Xin Bo, VP TA 

Technical ActivitiesReport

Ken Goldberg, VP TA 

RAS Technical Activities Board

• Ken Goldberg, VP Technical Activitiesgoldberg@berkeley.edu

• RAS Officers• 45 TC co‐chairs• 15 DLs• Frank van der Stappen, Assoc. VPTA• Katsu Yamane, Assoc. VPTA• “At‐large” members:  Tatsuo Arai, Alicia Casals, Satoshi Tadokoro, and Sebastian Thrun

TAB Report, ICRA, Orlando, 20 May 2006

1. Approved: Establish 2 New TCs:• Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion• Space Robotics

2. Approved: Expanding DL program from 15 to 24 DLS3. Approved: Most Active DL Award (+$1000/year)4. Approved: Expand Young Professionals Lunch to IROS

(+$5000/year)5. Approved: Approve TAB Charter

TAB Report, IROS, Shanghai, Oct 2006

1. Review Past Work: TAB meeting, Young Professionals Lunch 2. Proposal: Name Change:

1. Young Professionals Lunch2. GOLD Lunch (Graduates of the Last Decade)

3. Selected RAS Technical Milestones4. Quick Review of TCs5. Proposal: Name Change

1. TC on Semiconductor Factory Automation2. TC on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation

6. Proposal: Establish New TC:• Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH)

7. New DL Candidates from Under-Represented Areas8. Future Work: RAS Focus of Interest, other ideas

Young Professionals LunchThursday, 12:00‐1:00pm

Motion to Approve 

Proposal: Name Change: 

Young Professionals Lunch‐>GOLD Lunch 

(Graduates of the Last Decade)

GOLD Lunch

2006 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

(IEEE CASE’06)October 7-10, Shanghai, China

Microsoft Robotics StudioReleased Summer 2006

Panasonic Telegarden, $5000

RAS Technical Committees1. Aerial & Unmanned Aerial 

Robotics2. Agricultural Robotics3. Bio‐Robotics4. Comp. and Robot Vision5. Human‐Robot Interaction

& Coordination6. Humanoid Robotics7. Intelligent Transportation8. Manufacturing Automation9. Micro/Nano Robotics10. Motion Planning11. Networked Robotics

12. Programming Environments

13. Prototyping for R&A14. Rehabilitation Robotics15. Robo‐Ethics16. Safety, Security, and 

Rescue17. Semiconductor & Factory 

Automation18. Service Robots19. Space Robots20. Surgical Robotics21. Underwater Robotics

Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial VehiclesFlying opens new opportunities to robotically perform field services and tasks like search and rescue, observation and mapping. Key areas to be addressed include autonomous missions, localization and multi‐vehicle coordination.

Activities:•IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine Special Issue   ʺUnmanned Aerial Vehicles: Enabling Technologies and Roadmap for Autonomyʺ, GuestEditors: K.P. Valavanis (USF) and G.J. Vachtsevanos (Georgia Tech)

•Springer‐Verlag Book on UAVs (to be published)

•2006 2nd Annual Indoor Aerial Robot Competition, May 7, 2006 ‐Philadelphia•ICRA 2006:

•Full day workshop, “UAVs: Missions and Payloads”•Full day tutorial, “Hands‐on Lessons for UAV Construction”

•To Join, Contact  Paul Oh:    paul@coe.drexel.edu

IEEE Robotics & Automation SocietyAgricultural Robotics Technical Committee

Australia and theNational Centre for Engineering in Agriculturedevelop Vision/GPS/Inertial guidance systemsfor farm machinery

University of Southern Queensland researchers and the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculturedevelop image processing systems for livestock recognition

University of Georgia researchers develop networked autonomous GPS guided farm vehicles

To Join: Jason Stone: stonej@usq.edu.auJohn Billingsley: billings@usq.edu.au

Bio RoboticsThe main focus of Biorobotics is to learn from biological systems via a “biomechatronic” point of view, trying to understand the scientific and engineering principles underlying their extraordinary performance. design and fabrication of novel, high performance bio‐inspired machines and systems, for many different potential applications; and to develop (nano, micro, macro) novel devices that can better act on, substitute parts of, and assist human beings, such as in diagnosis, surgery, prosthetics, rehabilitation and personal assistance.

Haptics Symposium 2006   Workshop    March 25, 2006 ‐ Arlington VA (Washington DC) USA

Biorob2006 was  the first International Biorobotics conference, co‐sponsored by IEEE RAS and IEEE EMBS and held in February 2006 in Pisa Italy.

To Join:Hannaford, Blake (blake@ee.washington edu)Takanishi, Atsuo (takanisi@waseda.jp)

. .

To join: danik@nada.kth.se

IEEE Robotics & Automation SocietyComputer and Robot Vision Technical Committee

Chairs: Danica Kragic (KTH) and Ioannis Kakadiaris (UH)

Vision Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

Real-time, Stereo Based Object Recognition and Pose Estimation

Vision Based Activity Interpretation for Robot Learning by Demonstration

Human-Robot Interaction and CoordinationCo-Chairs: Cecilia Laschi , Cynthia Breazeal, Yasushi Nakauchi

• Recent Technical Developments– Computational models of core human socio-cognitive

skills (such as perspective taking and shared attention)have been successfully demonstrated to improve the quality of human-robot teamwork and interaction

– HRI frameworks have successfully been applied to traditional machine learning methods to enable humanoid and mobile robots to learn from natural human interactions via imitation, demonstration, and tutelage.

– The HRI community has embarked on developing evaluation metrics that embrace multi-disciplinary perspectives such as human factors, psychology, robotics, etc. for diverse areas of HRI such as Urban Search and Rescue, Social Robotics, H-R teams for Space Exploration, and more.

• To Join: tchric-all@hri.iit.tsukuba.ac.jpRobonaut (teleop)-astronaut teams at NASA JSC

DB learning by demonstration to play air-hockey at ATR

Leonardo sharing attention during collaborative tasks at MIT Media Lab

Humanoid RoboticsIEEE‐RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots 2005   Event ‐ conference    December 5, 2005 ‐ Tsukuba, Japan

The conference theme was ʺHumanoid Robots that Interact with Humans and the Society,ʺ reflecting growing interests in personal service and entertainment robots that can interact with humans. The conference was part of a  series started in Boston in 2000, and traveled through Tokyo (2001), Karlsruhe/Munich (2003), and Santa Monica (2004), and brought the spirit to Tsukuba. The 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan had taken place from March 25 to September 25, 2005 with a theme on ʺnatureʹs wisdomʺ for rediscovering the relationship between humanity and technology, and featuring the robotic exposition. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, anthropomorphism in robotics (hardware/software/theory), Robotics for human science (behavioral/psychological/cognitive/neural science), Human science for robotics, Human‐robot interaction, Humanoid robot applications, Key‐components for humanoid robots.

•To Join:Sugano, Shigeki (sugano@waseda.jp)Hirukawa, Hirohisa (hiro. Hirukawa@aist.go.jp)Lee, C. S. George (csglee@purdue.edu)

The DARPA Grand Challenge•The first race ever that saw 5 autonomous vehicles reach the finish line after 130+ miles of desert, rough terrain, and extreme conditions.

•The first time that unmanned vehicles succeed in this extremely complex task.

Christian Laugier; Urbano Nunes; Alberto Broggi

Cybercars: a new approach for sustainable mobilityEmerging as an alternative to the private passenger car, cybercars try to offer the same flexibility and much less nuisances based on fully automated electrical vehicles with on-demand and door-to-door capability. Fleets of such vehicles are being deployed in several worldwide cities and are already operational in specific environments such as shuttle services for passenger transportation.

Steering ControlCombination of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Keep Assist System (LKAS).

Join: Urbano Nunes, urbano@isr.uc.pt

Manufacturing Automation

Co-Chairs:• Michael Yu Wang

Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Zexiang LiHong Kong University of Science & Technology

• Kin Huat LowNanyang Technological University, Singapore

• "Steady-State Throughput and Scheduling Analysis of Multi-Cluster Tools for Semiconductor Manufacturing"Jingang Yi, (Lam Research Corporation), Shengwei Ding, (University ofCalifornia at Berkeley) and Dezhen Song, (Texas A&M University, USA)

• "Geometric Computation for Assembly Planning with Planar Toleranced Parts"Yaron Ostrovsky-Berman and Leo Joskowicz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

• "Analysis of Andon Type Transfer Production Lines: A Quantitative Approach"Jingshan Li and Dennis E. Blumenfeld (General Motors Research & Development Center, USA)

To join:• Kin Huat Low

mkhlow@ntu.edu.sg

Micro/Nano Robotics and AutomationTechnical Committee

Co-Chairs: Fumihito Arai and Ari Requichaarai @ imech.mech.tohoku.ac.jp requicha @ usc.edu

Recent Advances:Electron micrograph of a MEMS microrobotthat can be controlled electrostatically in the plane. Reference: B. Donald, C. Levey, C. McGray, I. Paprotny and D. Rus, “An untethered, electrostatic, globally controllable MEMS micro-robot”, J. Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 1-15, February 2006.

A self-assembly technique for building arbitrary shapes at the nanoscale by folding long, single-stranded DNA. Reference: P. W. K. Rothemund, “Folding DNA to create nanoscale shapes and patterns”, Nature, Vol. 440, pp. 297-302, 16 March 2006.

NEW!

Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion To Join:

1.Brock, Oliver oli@cs.umass.edu2.LaValle, Steve 3.Hasegawa, Tsutomu 4.Siméon, Thierry

Networked RobotsA ʺnetworked robotʺ is a robotic device connected to a communications network such as the Internet or LAN. The network could be wired or wireless, and based on any of of a variety of protocols such as TCP, UDP, or 802.11. Many new applications are now being developed ranging from automation to exploration. There are two subclasses of Networked Robots:

1) Tele‐operated, where human supervisors send commands and receive feedback via the network. Such systems support research, education, and public awareness by making valuable resources accessible to broad audiences.

2) Autonomous, where robots and sensors exchange data via the network. In such systems, the sensor network extends the effective sensing range of the robots, allowing them to communicate with each other over long distances to coordinate their activity. 

Networked robots pose a number of technical challenges related to network noise, reliability, congestion, fixed and variable time delay, stability, passivity, range and power limitations, deployment, coverage, safety, localization, sensor and actuation fusion, and user interface design. New capabilities arise frequently with the introduction of new hardware, software, and protocol standards.

Wolfram Burgard, Nak‐Young Chong, and Gaurav SukhatmeFounding Co‐Chairs: Ken Goldberg and Roland Siegwart

To Join: burgard@informatik.uni-freiburg.de

Programming Environments in Robotics & AutomationAdvances in Robot Software Development

• Domain Analysis : identification of issues and challenges in robot software development– Hardware heterogeneity– Prototype/Simulation/Reality

• Component‐based Development : definition of reusable software component models– Component internal behavior– Component external interface– Component integration

• Framework‐based Development : definition of software architectures for robot control application– Middleware for distribution– Functionality customization

To Join:Brugali, DavideBrugali.unibg.it

Prototyping for Robotics & AutomationPrototyping for Robotics & Automation

•• TC Chairs:TC Chairs:–– II‐‐Ming Chen (Ming Chen (NanyangNanyang Technological Technological 

UniversityUniversity–– MetinMetin SittiSitti (Carnegie Mellon University)(Carnegie Mellon University)

•• Recent Technical DevelopmentsRecent Technical Developments–– Spherical Actuators (3Spherical Actuators (3‐‐DOF ballDOF ball‐‐joint like joint like 

directdirect‐‐drive actuator)drive actuator)–– MicroMicro‐‐ & & NanoNano manipulation components manipulation components 

(Flexure(Flexure‐‐based Electromagnetic Linear based Electromagnetic Linear Actuator for high precision force control Actuator for high precision force control and positioning)and positioning)

–– Reconfigurable Automation Reconfigurable Automation (Reconfigurable and modular robotics)(Reconfigurable and modular robotics)

•• To Join: ITo Join: I‐‐Ming Chen Ming Chen ((michen@ntu.edu.sgmichen@ntu.edu.sg))

Spherical actuator

Flexure linear actuator

Reconf. automation

Rehabilitation RoboticsMichelle J. Johnson Eugenio Guglielmelli Takahori Shibata

Marquette University, USA Università Campus Bio-Medico, Italy AIST, Japan(From RAS Area 1: Americas) (From RAS Area 2: Europe, Middle Est & Africa) (From RAS Area 3: Asia & Oceania)

• MEMOS is a novel low-cost, 2 d.o.f. mechatronic system for elbow-shoulder rehabilitation

• Developed by the ARTS Lab of the ScuolaSuperiore Sant’Anna (Pisa) and experimented at Fondazione S. Maugeri (Veruno), Italy

• Preliminary clinical trials on post-stroke patients show very encouraging results

• This robot consists of two Stewart Platform type legs and waist with a passenger seat

• Developed by Waseda University (Tokyo) in co-operation with the TMSUK company

• Preliminary tests confirmed the stability and effectiveness of the system carrying one 60 Kg passenger

• The KineAssist is a robotic device for gait and balance motor training

• It results from a partnership of the Rehab Institute of Chicago with the IDEO company

• Key novel feature is therapist-robot physical interaction and co-operation for assisting the patient exercise

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTSROBOT-THERAPIST CO-OPERATION FOR LOWER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY

A NEW SIMPLE SYSTEM FOR ROBOT-MEDIATED UPPER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY

THE WL-16 LEGGED CHAIR FOR MOBILITY OF THE ELDERLY AND THE DISABLED

RoboethicsCo-chairs:• Gianmarco Veruggio <gianmarco@veruggio.it> (corresponding chair)• Ronald C. Arkin <arkin@cc.gatech.edu>• Atsuo Takanishi <takanisi@waseda.jp>

Roboethics – Ethical aspects in the design, development and employment of Intelligent Machines.

The TC was born in January 2004, at the First International Symposium on Roboethics, Villa Nobel, Sanremo, Italy.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:• IEEE Workshop on Roboethics organized by the TC at ICRA2005, Barcelona.• EURON Atelier on Roboethics, Genova, Italy, February 2006

Current Number of Members: 42

Safety Security and Rescue Robotics

* IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Securitiy and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 2006)   Workshop    August 25, 2006 ‐NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Contact Information: Adam Jacoff (adam dot jacoff at nist dot gov)* IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 2005)   

Workshop    June 9, 2005 ‐ Kobe, Japan

o Nardi, Daniele (nardi@dis.uniroma1.it)+ Univ. Roma ʺLa Sapienzaʺ, Dip. Informatica e Sistemistica

o Voyles, Richard (voyles.cs.umn.edu)+ University of Minnesota

o Matsuno, Fumitoshi (matsuno.hi.mce.uec. Ac.jp)+ The University of Electro‐Communications+ corresponding chair ‐ send email to join committee

* Committee Chairs Emeritus:o Tadokoro, Satoshi (tadokoro.rm.is.tohoku.ac. jp)

+ Tohoku University

To Join: : Satoshi Tadokoro (tadokoro@rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp)

Service Robotics

robot systems providing services of various kinds to human users. Above all, the Service Robots Technical Committee understands itself as a forum for exchange of information related to the design and development of service robots.This committee hopes to bring together researchers and developers from various disciplines such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The Committee wants to serve as a contact point and facilitator to bring industries interested in the field of service robotics together with the research community.

To Join: Prof. Dr. Erwin Prassler,

•Fiorini, Paolo (paolo.fiorini@univr.it)+ University of Verona

NEW!

Space Robotics

Wagner, Rick, email: Rick dot Wagner at NGC dot com Dimi Apostolopoulos, Carnegie-Mellon University Hobson Lane, Northrop Grumman Corporation, email: Hobson dot Lane at NGC dot comRichard Volpe, California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

IEEE Robotics and Automation's Technical Committee on

Surgical Robotics

To join, please contact Corresponding Chair:Jaydev P. Desai ‐ desai@coe.drexel.edu

Some examples of recent applications…

Locomoting Devices

MRI-Compatible Robotics

Credit: S. DiMaio et al., BioRob 2006

Credit: Metin Sitti, CMU

TC Co-Chairs:Jaydev P. Desai, desai@coe.drexel.eduFrank Tendick, frank.tendick@ucsf.edu

Mamoru Mitsuishi, mamoru@nml.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Automatic Detection of Instruments in Laparoscopic Images

Credit: (Voros, et. al., TIMC)

Underwater RoboticsCo‐Chairs: J. Yuh and Dan Stilwell

The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) has developed a deep-sea vehicle, URASHIMA for ocean science and exploration of ocean resources. This vehicle is one of the first underwater vehicles powered by fuel cell technology. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/

The Autonomous System Laboratory (ASL) of the University of Hawaii, MASE, Inc, and The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) have developed the SAUVIM AUV for intervention missions in up to 6,000m depth and demonstrated its autonomous robotic arm operation in 2005. http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/~asl/

To Join: stilwell.vt.edu

RAS Technical Committees1. Aerial & Unmanned Aerial 

Robotics2. Agricultural Robotics3. Bio‐Robotics4. Comp. and Robot Vision5. Human‐Robot Interaction

& Coordination6. Humanoid Robotics7. Intelligent Transportation8. Manufacturing Automation9. Micro/Nano Robotics10. Motion Planning11. Networked Robotics

12. Programming Environments

13. Prototyping for R&A14. Rehabilitation Robotics15. Robo‐Ethics16. Safety, Security, and 

Rescue17. Semiconductor & Factory 

Automation18. Service Robots19. Space Robots20. Surgical Robotics21. Underwater Robotics

Motion to Approve 

Proposal: Name Change

TC on Semiconductor Factory Automation->TC on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation

Motion to Establish an RAS Technical Committee on:

Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH)The successful deployment of haptic interfaces requires continuing advances in hardware design, control, software algorithms, as well as our understanding of the human somatosensory system. Priority areas :

1) Devices & technology2) Tactile display and tactile sensing3) Haptic rendering4) Perception & psychophysics5) Neuroscience6) Haptic cognition7) Multimodal perception8) Sensory guided motor control9) Applications in entertainment, medicine, rehabilitation, education, dataperceptualization, art, rapid prototyping, remote collaboration, etc.

Hong Z. Tan (Purdue University, USA) hongtan@purdue.eduMatthias Harders (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) Hiroyuki Kajimoto (University of Tokyo, Japan) 

Motion to Expand the RAS Distinguished Lecturer Program from 15 to 24 members

We are working to create more impact from the RAS DistinguishedLecturer Program, which promotes the field of Robotics and Automationto the broad engineering community and to the public at large.  TheProgram has a budget of $10,000/year to support air transport when DLsarrange speaking engagements with local IEEE Chapters.  Beginning in2006, Distinguished Lecturers are also encouraged to arrange andpresent ʺPublic Lecturesʺ : Public Lectures are aimed atnon‐specialists, and can be given in high‐schools, senior citizenshomes, science fairs, science museums, and the like.

Proposal:  Expand the number of DLs from 5 per region to 8 per region.Rationale:

* To represent more countries within each region.  We would like toappoint DLs in currently under‐represented countries that can serveto inspire and advance Robotics and Automation within thesecountries.

* To thereby reduce transport costs for talks at IEEE Chapters.

This proposal will not affect the $10,000 DL budget.

EuropeWolfram BurgardAlicia CasalsJean Paul LaumondBruno SicilianoRoland Siegwart

AmericasNancy AmatoVijay KumarPeter LuhDeirdre MeldrumMetin Sitti

RAS Distinguished Lecturers

Asia and PacificHugh Durrant‐WhyteShuuji KajitaYoshihiko NakamuraShigeki SuganoMichael Wang

Expanding the RAS Distinguished Lecturer Program from 15 to 24 members   Appointing 9 New Distinguished Lecturers:

3 from Asia:India: N. Vishu ViswanadhamTaiwan:  Li‐Chen FuKorea:  Frank Park

3 from Europe:Sweden/Norway:  Klas NilssonIsrael:  Dan HalperinAfrica/Egypt/Iran:  Majid Nili

3 from North Americas:Mexico:  Alfredo WeitzefeldCanada:  Tim SalcudeanSouth America:

RAS Field of Interest Statement (FOI) (1998):  

The Society is interested in both applied and theoretical issues in robotics and automation.  Robotics is here defined to include intelligent machines and systems used, for example, in space exploration, human services, or manufacturing; whereas automation includes the use of automated methods in various applications, for example, factory, office, home, or transportation systems to improve performance and productivity.  

RAS Field of Interest Statement (FOI) (1998):  The Society is interested in both applied and theoretical issues in robotics and automation.  Robotics is here defined to include intelligent machines and systems used, for example, in space exploration, human services, or manufacturing; whereas automation includes the use of automated methods in various applications, for example, factory, office, home, or transportation systems to improve performance and productivity.  Possible updates:Robotics:  mobile robots, humanoids, networkedrobots, …Automation:  sustained operations in health care, life sciences, security, …

New ideas:

How to facilitate TC Chairs role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session Assignment?

TC’s organizing informal “Birds of a Feather”meetings (lunches, dinners, gatherings at the hotel bar, etc) during conferences

TC’s promoting conference sessions based on advance conf announcements

Springer Handbook of Robotics

Bruno SicilianoOussama KhatibEditors

Coordinating RAS Research Efforts:Benchmarks, Metrics, and Milestones

TAB Report, IROS, Shanghai, Oct 2006

1. Review Past Work: TAB meeting, Young Professionals Lunch 2. Proposal: Name Change:

1. Young Professionals Lunch2. GOLD Lunch (Graduates of the Last Decade)

3. Selected RAS Technical Milestones4. Quick Review of TCs5. Proposal: Name Change

1. TC on Semiconductor Factory Automation2. TC on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation

6. Proposal: Establish New TC:• Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH)

7. New DL Candidates from Under-Represented Areas8. Future Work: RAS Focus of Interest, other ideas