Manipulation and recognition of objects incorporating joints by a humanoid robot for daily assistive tasks

Methods for a daily assistive humanoid robot to manipulate and recognize the objects incorporating joints and learn the manipulation knowledge are presented. It is necessary for humanoid robots to use the objects incorporating joints such as some furniture and tools to provide daily assistance. We have been tried to make an integrated humanoid robots recognition and manipulation system of the objects and tools in the real world. We extend the system for the objects incorporating joints. In this paper, a recognition system in which the robots recognizes the objects incorporating joints by the visual 3D object recognition method with multi-cue integration using particle filter technique and a manipulation system of them are shown. The search areas of the joints are automatically generated based on the manipulation knowledge. We present three key techniques to recognize and manipulate the objects incorporating rotational and linear joints. 1) Knowledge description for manipulation and recognition of these objects; 2) Motion planning method to manipulate them; and 3) Recognition method of them closely related to the manipulation knowledge. Moreover, a method for a person to teach the handle, one of manipulation knowledge, visually to the robot is shown. Finally, a daily assistive task experiment in the real world using these elements is shown.