Mixed-Reality Robot Platform

From ISLAB/CAISR
Title Mixed-Reality Robot Platform
Summary Build foundations for our mixed-reality platform by integrating and demonstrating an extensible system with one or more robots, a simulator, some offboard sensors, and simple teleoperation.
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Prerequisites
Author Norbert Gruenwald
Supervisor Roland Philippsen
Level Master
Status Finished


Project Description

Robotics research can be costly, challenging, and dangerous. Mixed reality is a promising avenue for alleviating some of these difficulties, for instance by making prototyping faster and cheaper (albeit less realistic) and by boosting the development and debugging process thanks to visualization and new opportunities for automated testing [1].

Specifically, in the context of active safety systems for intelligent vehicles, there are several ways in which mixed reality can be beneficial:

  • injecting virtual pedestrians, bad drivers, and other traffic hazards into the sensor stream of a physical test vehicle, such that no one comes to harm during development and testing
  • using miniature robots as physical model for real vehicles, and using an immersive teleoperation setup complete with prototypes of active safety systems to develop and test their functionality

This project serves as a starting point for building up broader competences in mixed-reality technologies at the Halmstad Intelligent Systems Lab. There is a significant body of prior work to be studied before making informed choices about the components required to build a mixed-reality platform that serves the need of current and future research projects. Most of the required components will likely come from existing open-source projects or commercial products. At the end of this project, we expect to have a rudimentary but robust and extensible system, including a mobile robot simulator, an simple yet effective teleoperation station, and extensive documentation that will allow us to build on these foundations.

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