An Overview of the DARPA Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) Program

摘要

Circa 2010, manipulation systems required burdensome human operation and high-precision arms and hands, yet could not match the manipulation skills of a two-year old child. To address this situation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began funding the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program. The program's goals are to develop intelligent control of manipulators that perform subtasks on their own, and to reduce the cost of robot hardware for wider adoption. The ARM program comprises four tracks: software, low-cost hand, low-cost arm, and outreach. ARM-S, the software track, is developing new techniques for grasping and manipulation using local sensors for perception. ARM-H, the low-cost hand track, focused on design and development of low-cost dexterous, multi-fingered robot hands. The low-cost arm track is addressing a low-cost, dual-use robot/prosthetic application. The outreach track is providing the public with an opportunity to interact with the ARM technology. This paper describes recent work in both ARM-S and ARM-H.