ACME, A Telerobotic Active Measurement Facility

We are developing a robotic measurement facility which makes it very easy to build “reality-based” models, i.e., computational models of existing, physical objects based on actual measurements. These include not only models of shape, but also reflectance, contact forces, and sound. Such realistic models are crucial in many applications, including telerobotics, virtual reality, computer-assisted medicine, computer animation, computer games, and training simulators. The Active Measurement Facility (ACME) is an integrated robotic facility designed to acquire a rich set of measurements from objects of moderate size, for building accurate physical models. ACME can provide precise motions of a test object; acquire range measurements with a laser range finder; position a 3-CCD color video camera, a trinocular stereo vision system, and other sensors around the object; probe the test object with a robot arm equipped with a force/torque sensor; and acquire registered measurements from all these sensors. ACME is a telerobotic system with fifteen degrees of freedom. Everything in ACME, from force controlled probing to camera settings and lighting, is under computer control. We have also developed an extensive teleprogramming system for ACME. ACME is designed to be a shared resource, and can be controlled from any remote location on the Internet.