Research Experience for Undergraduates Programs

Quantifying Humanlike Enveloping Grasps
http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/nsp/projects/hands/hands.html

Brief description: We are interested in planning grasping and manipulation tasks for animated characters and robots. In our approach, we take advantage of the rich set of information included in human demonstrations. To "reuse" a human demonstration, we must extract its important elements (e.g., how force is applied to an object to tilt it onto its side) and adapt the demonstration appropriately to new situations.
We are currently working to collect a library of human grasping and manipulation tasks that involve the whole hand. An example is power grasps, such as those used to hold hand tools. This REU project involves making our measurements of human hand motion more accurate and complete. We would like to automatically develop a good kinematic model of a particular subject's hand from measured motion data, for example, including recovery of joint range of motion for that subject.

REU logistics: Individual research within the graphics group.

Schedule: All year

Number of undergraduate positions: 2 CMU students

Supported by: NSF supplementary award

More information: http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/nsp/projects/hands/hands.html

Contacts: Nancy Pollard

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