Section: Application Domains

Services robotics

Service robotics is an application domain quickly emerging, and more and more industrial companies (e.g., IS-Robotics, Samsung, LG) are now commercializing service and intervention robotics products such as vacuum cleaner robots, drones for civil or military applications, entertainment robots ... One of the main challenges is to propose robots which are sufficiently robust and autonomous, easily usable by non-specialists, and marked at a reasonable cost. We are involved in developing observation and surveillance systems, by using ground robots (Turtlebot fleet) or aerial ones (ANR VIMAD (Navigation autonome des drones aériens avec la fusion des données visuelles et inertielles, lead by A. Martinelli, Chroma.)), see Fig. 5. Since 2016, we develop solutions for 3D observation/exploration of complex scenes or environments with a fleet of UAVs (Inria ADT CORDES) or ground robots (COMODYS FIL project).

A more recent challenge for the coming decade is to develop robotized systems for assisting elderly and/or disabled people. In the continuity of our work in the IPL PAL (Personnaly assisted Living), we aim to propose smart technologies to assist electric wheelchair users in their displacements (see Figure 2 for illustration). We address the problem of assisting the user for joining a group of people and navigating in crowded environments, in cooperation with Inria Lagadic team (Rennes) and also in our recent ANR Hianic. Another emerging application to assist people is telepresence robot. In 2016 we started the TENSIVE project, funded by the Region, with the team of G. Bailly from GIPSA Lab (Grenoble) and with the Awabot and Hoomano companies (in Lyon). The project aims to improve the driving of such robots by providing a social and autonomous navigation (PhD of R. Cambuzat). Moreover, the project is supported by INSA-CITI Lab. through the acquisition of a Pepper robot (see Fig. 5).