Robotics Institute
Seminar, September 15, 2006
Time and Place | Seminar Abstract | Speaker Biography | Speaker Appointments
Ballbots
Ralph Hollis
Research Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Mauldin
Auditorium (NSH 1305)
Refreshments 3:15 pm
Talk 3:30 pm
Multi-wheeled
statically-stable robots tall enough to interact meaningfully with people must
have low centers of gravity, wide bases of support, and low accelerations to
avoid tipping over. These conditions
present a number of performance limitations that make it difficult to maneuver
through doorways and around furniture and people. Accordingly, we are developing an inverse of
this type of mobile robot that is the height, width, and weight of a person,
having a high center of gravity, that balances on a single spherical
wheel. Such machines, which we refer to
as ballbots, appear to be a hitherto unstudied class of mobile robots. Unlike
balancing 2-wheel platforms which must turn before driving in some direction,
our single-wheeled ballbot can move directly in any direction. In this talk I will present the overall
design, actuator mechanism based on an inverse mouse-ball drive, control
system, and initial results including dynamic balancing, station keeping, and
point-to-point motion. In conclusion, I
will discuss plans for future enhancements including body yaw rotation and the
addition of a pair of dynamically-significant arms.
Ralph Hollis received
the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from Kansas
State University,
Manhattan, in 1964 and 1965, and the Ph.D.
degree in solid state physics from the University
of Colorado, Boulder, in 1975. From 1965 to 1970, he was
engaged in computer simulation of space-flight vehicles at the Autonetics
Division of North American Aviation. He
was a National Science Foundation / Centre Nationale de la Reserche
Scientifique Exchange Scientist at the Universite de Pierre et Marie Curie,
Paris, for part of 1976-77. He joined
IBM in 1978 at the Thomas
J. Watson
Research Center
as a Research Staff Member, where he worked in magnetism, acoustics, and
robotics. From 1986 to 1993, he was
Manager of Advanced Robotics in the Manufacturing Research Department. Dr.
Hollis joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University
in 1993 where he is a Research Professor in the Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science. Dr. Hollis is a member of the American
Physical Society and a Fellow of IEEE.
He has served on several government panels, and the editorial boards of
the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering: Structures, Devices, and
Systems, and the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. At IBM, he received five Invention
Achievement Awards and an Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for work in
precision robotic positioning. He was
recipient of the Nakamura Prize for best paper at the International Symposium
on Intelligent Robots and Systems in 1995 and 2001, IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society Best Video award in 1999, and was a Christopher Columbus
Fellowship Foundation Discover Award Finalist in 2000. He is founding director of the Microdynamic
Systems Laboratory at Carnegie
Mellon University
where his research centers on haptics, agile manufacturing, and
dynamically-stable mobile robots.
For
appointments, please contact Virginia Arrington (va2@andrew.cmu.edu)
The
Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.
