Robot DE NIRO: A Human-Centered, Autonomous, Mobile Research Platform for Cognitively-Enhanced Manipulation

Abstract

We introduce Robot DE NIRO , an autonomous, collaborative, humanoid robot for mobile manipulation. We built DE NIRO to perform a wide variety of manipulation behaviors, with a focus on pick-and-place tasks. DE NIRO is designed to be used in a domestic environment, especially in support of caregivers working with the elderly. Given this design focus, DE NIRO can interact naturally, reliably, and safely with humans, autonomously navigate through environments on command, intelligently retrieve or move target objects, and avoid collisions efficiently. We describe DE NIRO's hardware and software, including an extensive vision sensor suite of 2D and 3D LIDARs, a depth camera, and a 360-degree camera rig; two types of custom grippers; and a custom-built exoskeleton called DE VITO. We demonstrate DE NIRO's manipulation capabilities in three illustrative challenges: First, we have DE NIRO perform a fetch-an-object challenge. Next, we add more cognition to DE NIRO's object recognition and grasping abilities, confronting it with small objects of unknown shape. Finally, we extend DE NIRO's capabilities into dual-arm manipulation of larger objects. We put particular emphasis on the features that enable DE NIRO to interact safely and naturally with humans. Our contribution is in sharing how a humanoid robot with complex capabilities can be designed and built quickly with off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software. Supplementary Material including our code, a documentation, videos and the CAD models of several hardware parts are openly available at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/robot-intelligence/software/ .

A Review of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Transformed Health Ecosystems

“…Beyond this, there are physical systems that can deliver specialty care: Robot DE NIRO can interact naturally, reliably, and safely with humans, autonomously navigate through environments on command, intelligently retrieve or move objects ( 35 ).…”

Robotic Telemedicine for Mental Health: A Multimodal Approach to Improve Human-Robot Engagement

“…Socially assistive robots (SAR) are well-documented for promise to support dementia and mental health ( Tapus et al, 2007 ), with strong potential specifically to mitigate COVID-19 impact on PwD. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a range of tools from simple voice interfaces to interactive social robots have been introduced with the aim of providing stimulation, entertainment, personal assistance, monitoring and safety for older adults and PwD ( Inoue et al, 2012 ; Martín et al, 2013 ; Mordoch et al, 2013 ; Joranson et al, 2015 ; Moyle et al, 2017 ; Falck et al, 2020 ); see ( Abdi et al, 2018 ) for a recent review. Exemplary cases such as the humanoid robot NAO ( Agüera-Ortiz et al, 2015 ), PaPeRo ( Inoue et al, 2012 ), Bandit ( Tapus et al, 2009 ), Eva ( Cruz-Sandoval and Favela, 2016 ), and robot alternatives to animal assisted therapy such as AIBO, the robotic dog ( Tamura et al, 2004 ), NeCoRo, the robotic cat ( Libin and Cohen-Mansfield, 2004 ), and the well-known Paro, the robotic seal ( Wada and Shibata, 2007 ) have shown the possibility of improving patient engagement, reducing agitation, improving mood and communication, and decreasing stress ( Inoue et al, 2011 ; Petersen et al, 2017 ), though comparable results have been argued with a simple stuffed animal ( Moyle et al, 2017 ).…”