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Autonomous manipulation, a challenging technology milestone, refers to the capability of a robot system that performs intervention tasks requiring physical contacts with unstructured environments without continuous human supervision. Such a robot system underlies several emerging markets and applications, including security and rescue operations, space and underwater applications, military applications, and the health-care industry.

A workshop on autonomous mobile manipulation, sponsored by NSF and NASA, was held in Houston, Texas on March 10-11, 2005 and the workshop report recognized that it is imperative to develop autonomous mobile manipulation that will instigate significant scientific, economical, and societal impact. An autonomous mobile manipulation system could be considered as an integrated system of autonomous mobility and autonomous manipulation. Robotic vehicles at a recent DARPA Grand Challenge and humanoid robots have demonstrated a certain level of autonomous mobility as technologies for mapping and navigation get matured. A certain level of dexterous manipulability has been also demonstrated in structured environments, such as industrial settings. However, autonomous manipulation based on the sensory information in unstructured environments still represents challenging research issues.

Most of the topics here presented deal with Autonomous Robotics. Use the left menu to access more information on the appropriate research project.