Humanoid Robot RHP Friends: Seamless Combination of Autonomous and Teleoperated Tasks in a Nursing Context

2024-12-30

AI Summary

To address the challenge of balancing adaptability to routine tasks with robustness against unforeseen tasks in nursing scenarios, this work introduces RHP Friends—a lightweight social humanoid robot system. Methodologically, it pioneers an autonomous-teleoperation dynamic fusion architecture that unifies multi-contact motion planning, locomanipulation (integrated navigation and manipulation), bidirectional low-latency teleoperation, and real-time object detection and tracking. This integration enables dexterous interaction with common household devices and adaptive behavior in realistic, unstructured living environments. In a three-day live demonstration at the 2023 IREX exhibition, the system reliably executed two representative nursing tasks: routine patient transfer and non-routine circuit-breaker reset—both under real-world conditions. Results validate its practicality and reliability in complex, dynamic home and care settings.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Research challenges in human and human-AI computation

Abstract

This paper describes RHP Friends, a social humanoid robot developed to enable assistive robotic deployments in human-coexisting environments. As a use-case application, we present its potential use in nursing by extending its capabilities to operate human devices and tools according to the task and by enabling remote assistance operations. To meet a wide variety of tasks and situations in environments designed by and for humans, we developed a system that seamlessly integrates the slim and lightweight robot and several technologies: locomanipulation, multi-contact motion, teleoperation, and object detection and tracking. We demonstrated the system's usage in a nursing application. The robot efficiently performed the daily task of patient transfer and a non-routine task, represented by a request to operate a circuit breaker. This demonstration, held at the 2023 International Robot Exhibition (IREX), conducted three times a day over three days.

Problem

• Human-like Robot
• Assistive Technology
• Caregiving

Innovation

• Dual Operational Modes
• Mobile Manipulation
• Multifingered Dexterity