A Planning and Control Toolkit for Dual Arm Manipulation

It is often difficult to create autonomous robotic capabilities thatmatch what can be achieved via teleoperation. Even though it ismechanically possible for a humanoid robot such as Robonaut 2 toperform complex coordinated tasks such as tying a knot, exchangingobjects between end effectors, plugging in connectors, unscrewing acap, opening a door, or grasping large objects with two hands, ourlack of planning algorithms makes it difficult to control thesebehaviors autonomously. The lack of planning and control algorithmsalso impedes human-robot interaction as it is difficult formanipulation robots to plan arm trajectories in real-time using activesensing to avoid collisions with humans. This proposal is to develop asuite of planning and control algorithms that will enable NASA robotsto perform complex manipulation behaviors in a coordinated way. Thiswork would benefit NASA by making NASA robots more capable and usefulduring autonomous tasks and by enabling NASA robots to operatealongside humans during tasks that are shared between humans androbots.