Co-sponsored by: Robotics and Automation Society (RA24)

A technical talk organized by Aerospace & Electronic System (AES) and Robotics and Automation (RA) Chapters in Montreal Section. 

Abstract:

The catastrophe due to the reactor meltdown that happened at the  Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant in March 2011 is considered to be the  greatest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. It is estimated that if the  cooling system could have been restarted by operating a few valves  inside the facility within the first hours, the catastrophe could have  been vastly minimized. As it would be too dangerous for humans to  approach the facility, imagine if we could have deployed a human-like  machine that is immune to radiation and can perform tasks similar to  what humans can do. In addition, visualize that this machine could be  remotely controlled by a human operator that is safely located far  away. This very intuitive idea is the core concept behind Prof.  Sangbae Kim’s development of the HERMES Project (Highly Efficient  Robotic Mechanical Electric System) at the Biomimetic Robotics  Laboratory at MIT.

This talk will present the concept and design of the HERMES System  which consists of the following: a novel Balance Feedback Interface  (BFI) to address the bilateral feedback for full-body teleoperation;  and the MIT HERMES Humanoid Robotic Platform that draws several core  concepts explored in the MIT Cheetah Robot. We aim to take advantage  of humans’ inherent capability to move and adapt to the environment,  triggering reflex-based reactions in order to maintain postural  balance and safely negotiate with external disturbances. Although this  early stage research is still exploring the methodology to achieve  optimal performance for human-machine synchronization, results show  that a human operator can perform complex manipulation tasks and  explosive motions while maintaining robot postural balance. The  eventual goal of this project is to develop an integrated controller  that fuses the operator commanded reference with an autonomous  controller to combine the best of human and machine capabilities.

Speaker(s): João Luiz Souza Ramos,

Location:
Room: 12.111
Bldg: EV Building
1515 St. Catherine West,
Montreal, Quebec
H3G 2W1