Computer simulations of personal robots.

Abstract

It has been recognized for some time that persons with severe physical disabilities could benefit greatly if they had a personal robot under their control. Such kind of robots has been available for several years, but the acceptence by disabled persons has been very slow. One of the reasons is a concern for safety. If a robot arm is strong enough to bring food to a person's mouth, then it could do severe personal injury to the eyes or teeth in the event of an electronic or mechanical failure. In this thesis, a new approach of investigating a personal robot will be presented. A three-dimensional computer simulation of a personal robot will be described. It is completely under the control of the user. This simulation system has many advantages over testing an actual model, since it enables almost any type of personal robot and any type of control strategy to be investigated. This system can be used by researchers to investigate control algorithms for a personal robot. It can also be used by disabled persons so that they can get familiar with the robot as well as the control strategy before they use or purchase the actual model. Currently, this simulation is used to investigate a control strategy called "Modified Extended Physiological Proprioception".