AI robots can Now Self-Repair Other Bots
Ayzaan Wahid
In January, researchers demonstrated the culinary abilities of an open-source Aloha housekeeping robot. Now, the Unleashed project tackles tasks like tying shoelaces, hanging shirts, and even repairing other robots.
The Aloha Unleashed initiative involves Stanford Ph.D. student Tony Z. Zhao and Assistant Professor Chelsea Finn from the Mobile Aloha team, collaborating with roboticists from the Google DeepMind lab.
The research team employs paired Aloha 2 manipulator arms, designed to enhance the performance and durability of the original Aloha model while facilitating “fleet-scale data collection on more intricate tasks.”
Innovative Upgrades and Enhanced Simulation
Upgrades feature replacing the scissor mechanism on the grippers with a low-friction rail for grasping smaller objects, smaller RealSense cameras with a wider field of view, a passive gravity compensation system using off-the-shelf components to support leader arms for teleoperation, and an aluminum desktop frame with an overhead vision camera. Additionally, the team developed an enhanced simulation model with improved accuracy and visuals to aid in task learning.
Over the past year, the researchers have been “expanding the scale and dexterity of tasks on our Aloha 2 fleet,” and they have now unveiled a series of videos showcasing the dual-arm setup autonomously executing tasks while adapting to real-time slip-ups and placement challenges.
“We selected three highly dexterous tasks: tying shoelaces, replacing a robot finger, and hanging a shirt,” Finn stated in a post on X. “We aimed to train a policy for each task, and all were successful!”
Autonomous Operations and Collaborative Tasks
Zhao mentioned that the robots at each station operate autonomously, with the footage captured in a single continuous take. In the initial demonstration, the manipulator team assists a fellow robot, DeepMind’s SARA-RT model, by inserting a replacement gripper/finger, hinting at a future where robots can self-repair or aid each other. Subsequently, the robots collaborate to tie a shoelace.
While humanoid robots have previously demonstrated laundry folding, the Aloha manipulators were assigned the task of placing a shirt on a hanger and hanging it on a nearby rack. Although the training policy considered items of different colors and lacked adult shirt examples, when Zhao placed his sweater within the work area, the model successfully generalized and completed the task.
The Aloha Unleashed project is still in progress. However, if you’re interested in experiencing manipulator action firsthand, an Aloha research kit can be purchased from Trossen Robotics for just under US$30,000.
Read the original article on: New Atlas
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