CAREER: Safe and Reliable Human-Robot Shared Control for Robotic Telemanipulation in Complex and Extreme Environments

The scientific objective of this career proposal is to develop adaptive and intelligent human arm motion imitation and argumentation strategies for robotic arms. Four research goals are proposed: (1) Develop an efficient and intuitive method for human arm motion imitation of arbitrary robotic arms. (2) Save human operators’ efforts in real-time human arm motion imitation through integration of human arm motion prediction. (3) Avoid obstacles successfully in real-time human arm motion imitation through integration of autonomous motion planning. (4) Develop a generalizable robot imitation learning method for new tasks with constraints and environments with novel obstacles. The outcomes of these research goals will significantly improve the effectiveness, efficiency, user-friendliness, and safety of real-time human arm motion imitation and imitation learning of robotic arms. My long-term educational goal is to use role models to improve the performance and interest of underrepresented students in STEM. To achieve this goal, at the K12 level, the PI will collaborate with two local high schools to provide demonstrations, robotics lectures, and research opportunities for their students. At the undergraduate level, the PI will collaborate with the Kentucky State University Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) Program and the University of Kentucky ECE Undergraduate Research Fellowship (URF) program to provide research opportunities for underrepresented students. At the graduate level, the PI will incorporate research activities into Introduction to Robotics course and collaborate with IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Robotics and Foundation Cluster to organize seasonal schools. This career proposal puts forward an original and well-integrated research and education plan that will build a solid foundation for the PI’s future leadership in robotics research and education.