iTASC: a tool for multi-sensor integration in robot manipulation

iTASC (acronym for dasiainstantaneous task specification and controlpsila) by J. De Schutter (2007) is a systematic constraint-based approach to specify complex tasks of general sensor-based robot systems. iTASC integrates both instantaneous task specification and estimation of geometric uncertainty in a unified framework. Automatic derivation of controller and estimator equations follows from a geometric task model that is obtained using a systematic task modeling procedure. The approach applies to a large variety of robot systems (mobile robots, multiple robot systems, dynamic human-robot interaction, etc.), various sensor systems, and different robot tasks. Using an example task, this paper shows that iTASC is a powerful tool for multi-sensor integration in robot manipulation. The example task includes multiple sensors: encoders, a force sensor, cameras, a laser distance sensor and a laser scanner. The paper details the systematic modeling procedure for the example task and elaborates on the task specific choice of two types of task coordinates: feature coordinates, defined with respect to object and feature frames, which facilitate the task specification, and uncertainty coordinates to model geometric uncertainty. Experimental results for the example task are presented.