AGENTS
TOWARD PLAYFUL MACHINES AND CURIOUS AGENTS
HRI RESEARCH
BY MILOS ROGLIC
ROLE
TOOLS
YEAR
Software Development, Robotic manipulation
ROS, Unity, Robotic Arm
2019
This was an interactive installation featuring a 6-axis robotic arm, used in a speculative story about future health monitoring devices. The robot's predefined choreography can also be seamlessly interrupted and influenced by visitors.
My role involved researching robotic arm control, which we had not previously used. The challenge was to create a digital replica of the robot as accurately as possible to represent the position and movement of the physical one in realtime. A virtual camera was attached to the robotic head to match what visitors saw in real space. After researching several possible IK libraries in ROS (Robot Operating System), I realized it was more practical to write our own wrapper in C#, following the commands specified in the documentation protocol. A second challenge was that the user should be able to interrupt the robot's choreography at any time, so careful implementation of blending the robot's movement between positions was necessary in order to avoid singularities (robot hitting itself).
This project was also important to me, as it motivated me to learn ROS once the deadlines had passed. I later applied this knowledge in other projects.
These screenshots show custom-built UI control panels and a specifically built timeline with predefined robotic animation. This animation can be interrupted and blended into interactions based on visitors' commands.