Project No.: 5003-051366 01.11.97 - 31.12.99 (second series)

Project leader: Prof. Roland Siegwart, Institut de systèmes robotiques, Dép. de microtechnique, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL)
e-mail: Roland.Siegwart@epfl.ch

Name of project: Mobile robot on the web: interactive exploration of distant places

Partners:
Prof. Jean-Daniel Nicoud, Laboratoire de microinformatique (LAMI) Département d’informatique, EPFL
Gérald Garcia, Ecole cantonale d’art, Bussigny
Dr. Francesco Mondada, K-Team S.A., Préverenges

Funding: Sfr 647,468.-

Summary:
Despite some progress, intelligent autonomous robots continue to be a challenging research field strewn with difficulties. Semi-autonomous robots, on the other hand, offer much more promising prospects. Such a robot system, equipped with a sophisticated man-machine interface, lets operators with virtually no training perform complex tasks with the robot. Controlled over the Internet, almost anyone can direct such a system for use in a variety of places including dangerous locations.

The goal of the present research proposal is to develop new architectures and concepts for mobile, semi-autonomous robots, with intelligence distributed between the robot and the human operator. It is planned to design a variety of such systems in such a manner that they can be operated by anyone over the Internet. The robot systems are equipped with local "on-board" intelligence (motor control, obstacle avoidance, etc.) as well as a control system for autonomous navigation from a remote location via the Internet using virtual reality based man-machine interface.

The main research issues addressed by the project are:

• Architecture of semi-autonomous robot systems with distributed intelligence;
• Navigation in complex environments with particular emphasis on the robustness of the navigation system;
• Simple, interactive Web interface;
• Mobil robot man-machine interface based on virtual reality and Internet tools such as Java.

Cooperation:
Transfer partners are: CES (complete electronic systems) AG in Dübendorf and the Internet provider Urbanet, Lausanne. Demo partners are Swisscom, the Lucerne Transportation Museum, the Winterthur Technorama and the Lausanne "Computer" show.