TOYON RESEARCH CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: Toyon Research Corporation proposes to develop an open architecture programming and teachi

Description

Toyon Research Corporation proposes to develop an open architecture programming and teaching interface for autonomous robotic system control in whole-body manipulation, in collaboration with the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). The proposed architecture will consist of software capable of monitoring and analyzing a user"s behavior for a robotic system to mimic and enabling feedback between the operator and robot. At the heart of the proposed technical solution are advanced image processing algorithms capable of observing and recognizing complex actions and being able to transfer these motions to kinematic and dynamic implementation in a robotic system. In Phase I, Toyon proposes architecture and software design; adaptation of the Gazebo simulation platform used for the DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge; development of algorithms for activity recognition, motion tracking of the user, and robotic whole-body manipulation; implementation of a functional graphical user interface (GUI); and analysis of architecture and algorithm performance. In planned Phase II development, software and hardware solutions will be built to test and refine the architecture, algorithms, and graphical user interface developed during the Phase I efforts. Particular attention shall be applied to ensuring the safe operation of the robot and ease-of-use for an untrained field user.