Mixed reality and robotics: Unlocking more intuitive human-machine collaboration

Robots are becoming more capable and cost-effective, leading to an increasing role in our daily lives, both at home and in the workplace. However, for robots to operate easily alongside humans, people should be able to interact with them intuitively, and since safety is critically important, the robot needs a way to clearly communicate its intentions. Current robot interaction frameworks, which typically involve operating a robot from a remote workstation or controller or simply segregating robots and people in different parts of an environment, don’t adequately address these challenges. In this webinar, join Jeff Delmerico and Helen Oleynikova, Senior Scientists at the Mixed Reality and AI Zurich Lab, in exploring how mixed reality (MR)—which blends the digital world with the physical one—can be used to provide an easier and safer way to interact with robots. Mixed reality incorporates specialized devices such as HoloLens, augmented reality–capable mobile devices such as phones and tablets, and associated spatial mapping cloud services in an ecosystem that enables digital content associated with a particular physical location to be accessed in context by both humans and robot agents. This capability allows humans and robots to share the same spatial intelligence, facilitating intuitive control of the robot since commands can be given in the robot’s own representation of the world, as well as safer interaction since the robot’s intentions can be visualized through MR. Together, you’ll explore: ■ Modes of human-robot interaction in mixed reality ■ Methods of colocalization of MR devices and robots ■ Available tools for building mixed reality applications for interfacing with robots 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: ■ Mixed Reality & AI Lab - Zurich: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/mixed-reality-ai-zurich ■ Azure Spatial Anchors Linux SDK ROS Wrapper (GitHub): https://github.com/microsoft/azure_spatial_anchors_ros ■ Enabling interaction between mix