Aarne Halme ECT09

Future Intelligent Machines

Aarne HalmeTKK

GIM research institute

Aarne Halme ECT09

Content of the talk

• Introductory remarks• Intelligent machines• Subsystems technology and modularity• Robots and biology• Robots in homes

Aarne Halme ECT09

Introductory remarks• Mechanical engineering led industrial revolution about

250 years ago.• Mechanization of work started then and led to amazing

increase in the effectiveness of work until automation started about 60 years ago.

• Automation has increased the effectiveness, but particularly freed people from slavery of machines by increasing machines’ own intelligence.

• There are still much room for automation in the society, especially in non-factory applications, like making the machines use by people or the environment where we live, more smart.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Intelligent machines – what they are?

Robotic machines or robots that• replace people in tasks, which are

monotonous or which do not any more fulfill the minimum requirements for human work

• or operate in an environment unfriendly for humans

• or offer help or entertainment services to people in their homes or public places

Aarne Halme ECT09

Challenges for technology

- Task scenarios often include an environment, whichis not well structured, not a priori known in details and may be changing with time.

- In most cases robots must be mobile, because taskscannot be moved to the robots, but robots mustmove to the tasks.

- Often high autonomy is needed meaning thateverything, including energy, must be carried on-board.Requirements are similar to biological species.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Terminology

• Field robotics refers to outdoor applications. Many (but not all) applications are built using existing working machines

• Service robotics refers to mainly indoor applications, but sometime it is also used for light outdoor applications.

• In many cases service robots are intended to consumer markets for use of common people.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Situation in commercial markets

• Unlike industrial robots service robots as new products has not yet notable markets

• However, there is a big market potential. Most of the R&D investment world wide in robotics is today in this new area.

• On the other hand, work machine industry is evolving towards ”intelligent machines” i.e. fieldrobots. These markets are existing and huge.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Aarne Halme ECT09

Main application fields• Working machine technology for farming, construction

and utization of natural resources.• Exploration of planetary system ( moon, planets,

asteroids).• Undersea operations• Services: home services, entertainment, disabled

support, replacing manpower in human-intensive non-industrial work in offices, hospitals, public places, hostile urban environment (cleaning streets, sewers etc).

• Military technology • Rescue operations and katastrophe aftercare• Dismanteling nuclear plants• http://www.service-robots.org/index.htm

Aarne Halme ECT09

Today’s business: Mobile working machines

• Significant role in Finnish economy• 27 biggest exporting companies:

– turnover 4.4 Mrd eur (2006)– export 70%– employ more than 18000 people

• Today’s newest product development transformes classical manually controlled machines gradually “intelligent” , autonomous or remote tele-controllable machines.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Tomorrow’s business: Service robotics

• Robotics research priority in this area already the last15 years.

• Market weight point is gradually moving from industrial robotics to service robotics.

• On the other hand, only few succeeders this far• Roomba from iRobot has been sold globally already 2

million pieces.• Space and military applications speed up

advancement at the moment.• Many applications require high machine intelligence,

because the robots have to operate in disorganizeand badly known environments.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Examples

• Following slides and videos show examples of different field and service robots. There exist much more of them today in web, so you are encouraged to explore web to find more and different type of robots.

• F&S robots have a great variety of appearance depending their utility area.

• One of the best site to look different research projects is on-lineEXPO 22xx site Hall 5:http://www.expo21xx.com/automation21xx/university.htm

Aarne Halme ECT09

Today’s forest machines are computerized and quite ready to be roboticed

• Harvester machine- cuts trees and debrach them

• Forwarder machine- transports trees to roadside

Aarne Halme ECT09

Mechant and Plustech walking harvester machine

• Development done in TKK and Plustechcompany 1988-1995:

• Six leg heavy walking machine technology

• Practical target: harvester machine having mild impact on forest terrainVideo

Aarne Halme ECT09

Semiautonomous and teleoperated robotic vehicles

• Mobile robot test-bead constructed from a standard ATV

• Full scale loader machine instrumented for teleoperation tests

• Practical target: Remove driverfrom machine to remote location

• AutoMine• Arska

Aarne Halme ECT09

Future multi-purpose service robotsP3 (today Asimo) WorkPartner

Weight 210 kg 230 kg Max vel. < 1m/s 2…3m/sWork weight 5 kgf/hand 5 kgf/handPayload ? 60 kgOpration time 15 min 4-5 hour (2 liter petrol)http://world.honda.com/HDTV/ASIMO/ http://automation.tkk.fi/WorkPartner/Media

Aarne Halme ECT09

Subsystems of F&S robots

• All F&S robots are systems, which consist of subsystems

• There is no standardized way to define the subsystems, but the following is “de facto”standard.

• The subsystems may consist of HW or SW or both. The cropping attribute is the functionality.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Subsystems and their tasks:

• Power and energy system• Motion system• Work tool system (includes possible manipulator,

other tools and their lower level controllers)• Motion control system• Perception and sensing system• Navigation system• Motion and action planning system (mission control)• Human-robot interface (intercommunication)

Aarne Halme ECT09

Academy of Finland

Centre of Excellence in Generic Intelligent Machines Reseach

Aarne Halme ECT09

GIM is joint venture of two host organizations

Automation Technology Laboratory ATLFounded in 1985; director prof. HalmeBelongs to the Department of Automation and Systems Engineering at TKK

Institute of Hydraulics and Automation IHAFounded in 1988; director prof. VileniusBelongs to the Department of Intelligent Hydraulics and Automation at TUT

GIM was founded by a common declaration 17.10.2005 and officially by Finnish Academy 1.1.2008

Aarne Halme ECT09

General research goal • The focus of GIM covers mobile machines, intended to some useful work, from

ordinary working machines to futuristic service robots experienced this far only in Star War movies.

• Vision:

The future development of those machines will take place under a generic framework, which opens up novel possibilities to create new mechatronic machines through a modular design and manufacturing.

The merging properties are the generic subsystem architecture and physical modular structure that such future machines have.

• Mission:

To bring about unique new research results in the methodology and technology of the subsystems infrastructure that support practical long term development of the generic intelligent machines.

Aarne Halme ECT09

Research agenda• RP 1 Internal goal assesment and training• RP 2 Modularity of generic machines• RP 3-4 Power and energy systems • RP 5 Control Architecture• RP 6 Perception and navigation system• RP 7 Human-Robotic Machine Interaction• RP 8 Motion Systems• RP 9 INTEGRATOR – infrastructure for

experimentation and validation of reseach results in multi-machine environment

Aarne Halme ECT09

Integrator project

• Integrate machines and people trough Internet

• Goal is to demostrate”Future worksite”concept

• First version of GIMnetalready exists and enables to use machineslocated in Tampere fromEspoo

ModelWorksite

Remote control room(s)

Virtual environment

Operator

internet

GIM-Architecture

communicationcommon presence

databasesMachines

Human workers/local operators

Production management

Task design tools

Local controls

maintenanceexceptions

Aarne Halme ECT09

Research platform, where all subsystems havebeen implemented in a non-trivial way

WorkPartner developed by TKK Automation Technology Laboratory (1998-2006)http://www.automation.tkk.fi/WorkPartner

• Humanoid (centaur-like) robot with two hand manipulator

• Hybrid locomotion system - wheel driving mode- walking mode- rolking mode (walking on the wheels)

• Hybrid power system• Multimodal HRI based on cognition and

interaction• Designed for outdoor use

Laser scanner

Laser pointer

CCD-camera

Engine

Navigation unit

GPS-antennaLeg-control unit

Manipulator

Elbow-controller

Main computer

Body joint

Aarne Halme ECT09

General progress in subsystems technology

• There has been tremendous progress within 10-15 last years in several subsystem technology, specifically in

- motion control- navigation

• Still much progress is needed both in methods and technology, specifically in

- perception- motion and action planning (AI)- HRI

Aarne Halme ECT09

Robots and biology

Many problems in robotics can be solved keeping in mind biology and neuro science (bionics, biomimetics):

- Improving mechanical design and energy efficiency. Utilization of the energy stored in the environment <-> animal physiology and anatomy

- Improving mobility, motion control and coordination of task execution <-> neuro-motoric systems

- Improving sensing and environment perception <-> biological sensing and perception system and related neural structures

- Designing cognitive interfaces between robots and human users <-> animal and human cognition mechanisms

Aarne Halme ECT09

Robotics in homes• Robotics is coming as a part of home automation, which

in turn is a part of development of building automation• When and in what form this will happen is still shrounded

in mystery• It is a big potential market, however. • Challenges in R&D are related in one hand price

sensitivity and on the other hand very to the demandingenvironment that home is.

• TKK/GIM Ceilbot student innovation project tries a verydifferent solution making the robot use ceiling instead of floor.

Aarne Halme ECT09

TKK Ceilbot – a big challenge for students to innovate new solutions for home robot using ceiling instead of floor.