Our primary work is with our PR2 personal robot. The PR2 is a commercial robotics platform developed by Willow Garage. The PR2 is an approximately person-sized mobile robot that has a wide variety of sensors and actuators. It is designed to safely and effectively operate in a human-centric environment such as a store or office. The PR2 can successfully perform a wide variety of manipulation tasks using its two 7-DOF arms. The robot navigates using a four-caster pseudoholonomic base. All motors in the robot have hardware control loops for accurate position and velocity control. The robot features a pan-tilt head with two stereo cameras, a Microsoft Kinect, as well as a high-resolution color camera. Additional sensors include two Hokuyo laser scanners (one of which is mounted on a tilting plate). The PR2 was based on the PR1 robot developed here at Salisbury lab.
We currently possess a PR2 robot called ‘Ken’ or alternatively ‘Rosie’. We have utilized our PR2 for our PR2 coffee run task.
Prior to the development of PR2, the PR1 (Personal Robot 1) was developed in the Salisbury Lab by students Keenan Wyrobek and Eric Berger. The robot pioneered many of the concepts in the PR2 such as compliant counterbalanced arms. It also served as a proof-of-concept for the benefits of the high reliability and performance of the PR2. PR1 has been entirely superseded by the PR2, however the work with the robot and the upgraded base and camera turret still stands.