Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

Regional Initiatives

ADT CARRoMan

The ADT project CARRoMan started in november 2012 (recruitement of Antoine Hoarau). Autonomous human-centered robots, for instance robots that assist people with disabilities, must be able to physically manipulate their environment. There is therefore a strong interest within the FLOWERS team to apply the developmental approach to robotics in particular to the acquisition of sophisticated skills for manipulation and perception. ENSTA-ParisTech has recently acquired a Meka humanoid robot dedicated to human-robot interaction, and which is perfectly fitted to this research. The goal of this ADT is to install state-of-the-art software architecture and libraries for perception and control on the Meka robot, so that this robot can be jointly used by FLOWERS and ENSTA. In particular, we want to provide the robot with an initial set of manipulation skills. The engineer will develop a set of demos, which demonstrate the capabilities of the Meka, and provide a basis on which researchers can base their experiments.

CRA ARAUI

A Conseil Régional d'Aquitaine Project (ARAUI, 2011-) began, coordinated by Manuel Lopes entitled Apprentissage Automatique en Robotique pour l'Adaptation aux Utilisateurs a Travers L'Interaction. It will fund $50\%$ of a 3 years PhD student and funding of 5500 euros for equipment.

The objective of ARAUI is the creation of robots that initiate autonomously the execution of frequent tasks after learning about the user's preferences through repeated interactions. Particularly these robots will act as personal companions or helpers and will be able to perform shared tasks with humans.

The long-term view of this project is that of a robot that comes out of the box with general purpose motor and sensory skills and then is adapted to each user's preferences and needs to achieve autonomous behavior. The major challenge is how to equip machines with such adaptability and learning capabilities. Until now machines are programmed by skilled engineers to perform a specific task and learning new tasks is not possible. Even in a restricted industrial setting the need for robots that can be more easily re-programmed to new tasks and environments has lead to research programs on flexible manufacturing that consider frequent changes in tasks and close (physical) interactions with human operators.

CRA ACROBATE

The Conseil Régional d'Aquitaine Project (ACROBATE, 2009-) continued, involving Thomas Cederborg and Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. The funding contributes with $50\%$ funding for a 3 years PhD student. The objective of ACROBATE is to study mechanisms and models that can allow a robot to learn in a unified manner context-dependant motor skills and linguistic skills through interactions with humans.

ADT Acrodev

The ADT project (Acrodev, 2010-) continued, involving Paul Fudal, Haylee Fogg, Olivier Ly and Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. The Inria ADT funds two engineers for two years. The objective of Acrodev is on the one hand to build up re-usable software architectures for embedded control of Acroban-like robots, and on the other hand to explore novel morphologies in particular for the feet, hands and head of Acroban-like robots.

Collaboration with Labri/Unvi. Bordeaux I

We continued to collaborate with the Rhoban group at Labri/CNRS/Univ. Bordeaux I, and in particular Olivier Ly and Hugo Gimbert, about the design of bio-inspired compliant robotic morphologies, such as around the Acroban humanoid robot. The goal is to study both how properties of the body can facilitate motor control, and how to experiment and design such bodies with rapid prototyping methods.

Collaboration with Labri/Univ. Bordeaux I and Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Integratives d'Aquitaine

The collaboration with Olivier Ly, from Labri and Univ. Bordeaux I, as well as with Jean-René Cazalets, Christophe Halgand and Etienne Guillaud from Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Integratives d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux continued. The goal is to compare properties of the postural balance, and its relation to morphology and distributed control, in humans and in the humanoid Acroban (developped in collaboration with Labri), which vertebral column and postural control shares several fundamental features with the human vertebral column, and using the “Plateforme d'analyse de la motricité” available at the Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Integratives d'Aquitaine. This collaboration involves Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre-Yves Oudeyer.