Intelligent apartment

The apartment constitutes an experimental playground for assistive robotics, reproducing the conditions of a domestic environment. Its distribution is reconfigurable as the “walls” are made up by removable 100x100x20 cm blocks of expanded polystyrene. The furniture is real and currently includes a bed, a night table, a closet, bookshelves, a fridge, a sink, a table, two chairs, an armchair, a sofa, a side table and a coffee table. The objective is having the robots develop their skills in this cluttered environment so that they are able to perform domestic chores in life-like conditions. Special emphasis is set in the manipulation of deformable objects, which includes the handling of laundry, dressing assistance, bed making, and table dressing, among others.

Some elements of the apartment are controlled domotically via ROS. For instance, the position of the curtains can be controlled and door state, temperature or human presence in a room can be sensed.