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Spring 2012 GRASP Seminar: Christopher Geyer, IRobot, “Heads-up, hands-free operation of UGVs through Embedded Computer Vision”

February 17, 2012 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Abstract: Today, most commercially available UGVs use teleoperation for control. 
Under teleoperation, users’ hands are tied up holding a hand-held
controller to operate the UGV, and their attention is focused on what
the robot is doing.  In this talk, I will describe iRobot’s work on an
alternative to teleoperation called Heads-up, Hands-free Operation,
which allows an operator to control a UGV using operator following
behaviors and a gesture interface.  We explore whether Heads-up,
Hands-free Operation is an improvement over teleoperation.  In a study
of 30 participants, we found that when operators used these modes of
interaction, they performed missions faster, they could recall their
surroundings better, and they had a lower cognitive load than they did
when they teleoperated the robot. Heads-up, Hands-free Operation is
enabled through the use of embedded computer vision technologies.

Presenter

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Dr.
Christopher Geyer leads research and development in perception for
unmanned systems at iRobot Corporation. His interested include
computer vision, robotics, human machine interaction and robot
autonomy, and perception for unmanned vehicles in the air, on the
ground, and underwater.

Dr.
Geyer started his career in robotics in the GRASP Lab at the University
of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.S.E. and Ph.D. in Computer
Science in 1999 and 2002, respectively. For his PhD thesis, he was
awarded the Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff Award for innovative
applications of computer technology. Starting in 2003, he served as a
post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley,
working on computer vision and automation for unmanned aerial vehicles.
While at Berkeley he led an effort to develop an autonomous landing
capability for unmanned rotorcraft for the U.S. Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

He
joined the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005,
and lead research in perception for aerial vehicles, including
developing technology for sensing and avoiding general aviation
aircraft on-board unmanned aerial vehicles. Memorable activities
include flying straight at another airplane at closing speeds of 200
mph. He was also a member of the CMU’s Tartan Racing team, the team
that won first place in the DARPA Urban Challenge.

Since
joining iRobot in 2008, he has been leading efforts to give unmanned
ground vehicles better perceptive capabilities and to endow their human
operators with greater situational awareness. He has lead development
of object and activity recognition research for DARPA, as well
improvements to the way in which people interact with robots.

Details

Date:
February 17, 2012
Time:
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Category:

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