JP2006297531A - Service robot - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a service robot which can change the direction of the robot without rotating its body. <P>SOLUTION: The service robot is a moving robot having at least one arm 4 capable of executing operation and a gesture, a head part 1 capable of measuring surrounding environmental states with an image by rotating a direction of a camera 9 with the degree of freedom of a neck 3, a moving means 5 capable of horizontally rotating with a prescribed radius and capable of moving forward and backward, and a means 7 for making communication in-between a person with voice recognition, voice utterance, characters and pictures using a monitor, and a button. The robot executes an application (A) achieved by facing a person like the presentation and an application (B) achieved by moving while making a person follow the robot like a guide. The robot has a function for allowing a desired robot face to face a person in a prescribed application by making people around the robot recognize the definition of the front face of the robot from a shape of the arm, a direction of the head, and a posture of the robot by changing the arm, the direction of the head, and the posture of the robot. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a service robot.

  As a conventional technology as a robot, when a customer service robot receives ID information from an ID transmission device carried by a visitor, it requests detailed information from the server, determines the visitor's entrance status, and provides detailed information. There is known one that executes an action corresponding to the above (for example, see Patent Document 1). Further, there is known a technique in which the viewing direction of a robot camera is sequentially shifted in accordance with an external control signal (see, for example, Patent Document 2). In addition, when a mobile robot has moved to a place where radio waves do not reach, a technique for moving the robot to a range where radio waves reach is known by return means that returns to a point where wireless connection is possible (for example, Patent Documents). 3).

As the mobile service robot, an application A that is realized by facing a person and an application B that is realized by taking a person are considered. A robot that always defines the same direction as the front is the opposite of the body surface of the robot facing the person in these two cases. In general, a mobile service robot is required to seamlessly realize these applications at an execution speed of a human behavior level.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-22029 (paragraphs 0010 to 0013, FIGS. 1 to 3) JP 2004-255552 A (paragraphs 0009 to 0012, FIGS. 1 to 3) JP 2004-260769 A (paragraphs 0006 to 0009, FIGS. 1 to 3)

  In the above-described mobile service robot, from the viewpoint of interpersonal safety, it is necessary to select an action algorithm that suppresses movements that are a source of danger as much as possible and that allows easy confirmation of surrounding obstacles. At least one arm that can perform work and gestures, a head that can rotate the direction of the camera and measure the surrounding environmental state with an image, and a moving mechanism that can turn left and right and move back and forth with a predetermined radius Since the conventional service robot has the concept of the front is uniquely determined, an extra dangerous operation and an extra communication device are required.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a service robot capable of advanced and highly reliable communication and information providing services.

(1) The invention according to claim 1 is characterized in that at least one arm capable of performing work and gesture, and a head capable of measuring the surrounding environmental state by an image by rotating the direction of the camera with a degree of freedom of the neck. , Having means for moving left and right and moving back and forth with a predetermined radius, and means for communicating with people using voice recognition, voice utterances and letters, pictures and buttons using a monitor, A mobile robot that executes an application A that is realized in a face-to-face manner and an application B that is moved along with a person, such as guidance, and changes the robot's arm, head orientation, and posture. It is characterized in that it has a function of allowing the surrounding person to recognize the definition of the robot and facing a desired robot surface to the person in a predetermined application.
(2) The invention described in claim 2 is characterized by executing switching control of definitions of body coordinates such as a robot arm and a head in synchronization with the application switching.
(3) The invention according to claim 3 is characterized in that, in an application using different directions of the applications A and B as the front, the rotation range of the camera direction and the movable range of the arm are equally allocated to each application. To do.

(1) According to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to ensure human safety and realize highly reliable communication and information providing services.
(2) According to the invention described in claim 2, there is no deviation in the definition of the front of the robot and the front felt by the surrounding people, and there is no need to be aware of the left and right changes in application units.
(3) According to the invention described in claim 3, library operation and application development that can be used in common can be performed without being aware of the difference in the movable range regardless of which of the front faces.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an external configuration example of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a head, 2 is a body, 3 is a neck, 4 is an arm, 5 is a moving device, 6 is a microphone, 7 is a monitor, 8 is a speaker, and 9 is a camera. That is, the two arms 4 that can perform work and gestures, the head 1 that can measure the surrounding environmental state by rotating the direction of the camera 9, and the movement that can turn left and right and move back and forth with a predetermined radius It has a device 5 and has means for communicating with a person by voice recognition, voice utterance, characters, pictures, buttons, etc. using the monitor 7.

  In the present invention, an application A realized by facing a person such as a presentation and an application B that moves with a person later such as a guide are executed. The configuration example shown in FIG. 1 has a shape simulating the upper body of a person in order to facilitate communication with the person. In this way, using a shape commonly held by ordinary people as a concept, as shown in Fig. 2, the appearance and definition of the front of the robot can be used by changing the orientation and posture of the head and arms. Can passively inform people.

  FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the difference between the front of the robot depending on the postures of the head and arms. (A) is a feature C that makes the P-plane appear to be the “front” of the robot, and (b) is a feature D that makes the P-plane appear to be the “rear” of the robot. In order to change from the form C to the form D, the head 1 is rotated by 180 degrees, and the robot arm 4 is twisted from the joint portion so that the downward direction from the joint of the arm is the opposite direction. In addition, the existing technology can be used for twisting the arm to make it opposite. The body 2 including the monitor 7 is the same as that shown in (a). However, by rotating the joint between the head and the arm, it is determined that the robot is turned backward by the shape as shown in (b). Can be made.

  Thus, the form C becomes a form suitable for a service application performed with the monitor 7 positioned on the chest side. As these applications, there are presentations of gestures while drawing pictures on the monitor 7. On the other hand, the form D is a form suitable for an application performed with the monitor 7 positioned on the back side.

  As an example of this application, there is a pull-in type guide that takes a person to the back side. To provide environment-friendly information by displaying pictures, photos, characters, etc. on the monitor 7 for the user on the back side, while measuring the environment in the direction of the robot with an image taken by the camera 9 Is possible. Thus, according to the present invention, it can be used as a two-shaped robot without separately mounting a monitor. As described above, according to the present invention, when the orientation of the robot is changed, the body itself does not turn, so that it is possible to ensure human safety and realize a highly reliable communication and information providing service. it can.

  Switching between these shapes is possible by switching (twisting) a specific minimum joint that makes the front of the robot image as a common concept. In this configuration example, the neck rotation joint that controls the face direction of the head 1 relative to the body 2 and the bending direction of the elbow make the image of the front of the robot.

  In complex applications such as A / B-type applications that are linked to welcome, interview, and guide guidance, the relative positional relationship between a person and a robot can be moved by moving a limited joint of the robot without moving the person or the entire robot. It can be changed by changing it, enabling smooth application execution. As an example, the flow of greeting and accompanying guidance as shown in FIG. 3 is shown.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a service by switching the front definition of the robot. In (a), the person 18 and the robot are facing each other. In (b), the robot pronounces “Speaking of Mr. ●, welcome. Then I will guide you” from the speaker 8. After this, the forward / backward definition switching operation is performed by deforming the neck direction and the shape of the arm. As a result, the shape of the robot changes as shown in (c), and the person follows the robot. The robot pronounces "Please come behind me" from the speaker 8. And while moving, the information in the hall can be displayed on the monitor 7 on the back side.

  In the robot described above, when switching the definition of the front of the robot, software settings that affect the definition of the left and right, such as conversation, control of the arm, neck, traveling device, etc., as seen from the switching of the definition of the left and right arms of the robot All need to be changed. That is, unless the definition of the right arm felt by people around the robot and the concept of the right arm in the robot are matched, the conversation “XXX seen on the right hand side is ΔΔ” cannot be established.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a procedure for changing the definition of the front by changing the form. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of front definition switching, coordinate setting, and shape deformation. FIG. 4 shows the definition of the front as a simple code such as [1] for an A-type application and [2] for a B-type application.
This code is used for the coordinate conversion processing unit related to the control of the neck and the traveling device, and is set and corrected simultaneously in synchronism, and then the shape deformation process is executed. In this way, by simultaneously changing the parameters at the same time, there is no deviation in the definition of the front of the robot and the front of the robot, and there is no need to be aware of the left and right changes in application units.

  The operation of FIG. 4 will be described. First, when the setting application is executed (S1), the presence / absence of a front definition switching event is checked (S2). If there is no front definition switching event, the process returns to step S1. If there is a front definition switching event, the front definition discrimination code is set (S3). Next, the body parameter is updated according to the determination code. The body parameters include a conversation engine 20, an arm coordinate conversion matrix 21, a running coordinate conversion matrix 22, and a neck coordinate conversion matrix 23. Then, the shape deformation is executed (S5), and the process returns to step S1.

  Next, in an application that uses different directions as the front, such as features C and D, the rotation range of the orientation of the robot camera 9 is determined. For example, the rotation angle range of the neck 3 and the movable range of the arm 4 are equally allocated. In either case, it becomes possible to develop a library and application that can be used in common without being aware of the difference in the movable range.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a rotationally movable range of the neck viewed from above. The same components as those in FIG. 1 are denoted by the same reference numerals. 1 is the head, 2 is the body, 4 is the arm, J is the camera viewing direction, and K is the rotationally movable range of the neck 3 (not shown). The rotational range of the neck coincides with the range of visual line movement of the camera. The P-plane side is the same as in FIG. By allocating the range of rotation of the neck evenly, it is not necessary to be aware of the difference in the range of movement when either becomes the front.

  FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of switching of the robot front position by changing the shape of a specific joint of the arm. In the case of (a), a case where the shape is changed by the upper arm torsion joint 4a is shown. By twisting the torsion joint 4a, the definition of the front position is reversed. In the case of (b), the definition of the front position is reversed by twisting the elbow joint 4b. Thus, according to the present invention, by twisting the joints of the arm portion, the front position definition can be defined by using the concept of the arm shape that a person has as common sense even if the robot itself does not rotate. Can be changed. An existing technique can be used for the mechanism for rotating the arm by twisting the joint.

  FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. An imaging mechanism for the camera portion and an operation mechanism such as a voice guide portion, a neck, and an arm are omitted. In the figure, reference numeral 30 denotes a main control device, which comprises a main storage device 31 and a CPU 32 that controls the overall operation. A first arm control unit 33 and a second arm control unit 34 are connected to the CPU 32 and the main storage device 31. A head control unit 35 is connected to the CPU 32. An application storage unit 16 stores various applications. The operation of the robot configured as described above will be described as follows.

  The CPU 32 accesses the application storage unit 36 and causes the main storage device 31 to download an application for causing the robot to perform each operation. Then, based on the application stored in the main storage device 31, the operation as described above is performed. The CPU 32 sends a control signal to the first arm control unit 33 and the second arm control unit 34 to cause the arm joint to twist to operate each arm as a right arm or a left arm. Further, the CPU 32 sends control to the head control unit 35 to control the rotational movement of the neck 3.

  According to this embodiment, the first arm control unit 33 and the second arm control unit 34 are controlled to determine which is the right arm or the left arm. When the right arm and the left arm are defined, it is determined which is the front or back of the robot. The CPU 32 can automatically perform the twisting operation of the right arm and the twisting operation of the left arm. However, a person can manually perform the switching operation from the monitor 7. The first arm control unit 13 and the second arm control unit 34 can read the reference data and the definition of the front by referring to the main storage device 31, and can point the arm in a predetermined direction (see FIG. 6).

  As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a service robot capable of changing the direction of the robot without rotating the body and capable of performing highly reliable communication and information providing services.

It is a figure which shows the example of an external appearance structure of one embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing of the difference in the robot front by the attitude | position of a head and an arm. It is a figure which shows the example of the service which switches the front definition of a robot. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of switching of a front definition, coordinate setting, and a shape deformation. It is a figure which shows the example of the rotation movable range of the neck seen from the top. It is explanatory drawing of switching of the robot front position by the shape change of the specific joint of an arm. It is a block diagram which shows one embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Head 2 Body 3 Neck 4 Arm 5 Moving Device 6 Microphone 7 Monitor 8 Speaker 9 Camera

Claims (3)

At least one arm that can perform work and gestures,
A head that can rotate the direction of the camera with the degree of freedom of the neck and measure the surrounding environmental state with an image,
Moving means capable of rotating left and right and moving back and forth with a predetermined radius;
Voice recognition, voice utterance, means to communicate with people with letters, pictures and buttons using a monitor,
A mobile robot that executes an application A that is realized by facing a person like a presentation, and an application B that moves with a person later like a guide,
The robot has the function of changing the robot's arm, head orientation and posture, allowing the surrounding person to recognize the definition of the front of the robot from its shape, and having the desired robot face face the person in a given application Service robot.   The service robot according to claim 1, wherein switching control of definitions of body coordinates such as a robot arm and a head is executed in synchronization with the application switching.   The service robot according to claim 1, wherein in the application using different directions of the applications A and B as the front, the rotation range of the camera direction and the movable range of the arm are equally allocated to each application.

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