MORPHeus: a Multimodal One-armed Robot-assisted Peeling System with Human Users In-the-loop

TL;DR

This paper presents MORPHeus, a novel single-arm robotic system with multimodal perception and human-in-the-loop planning for peeling tasks, addressing ergonomic challenges in home care settings.

Contribution

Introduction of a multimodal, human-in-the-loop robotic peeling system using a single arm, tailored for home care and diverse food items.

Findings

Successfully peeled 12 diverse food items

Achieved high accuracy in peel detection

Demonstrated adaptability to different food properties

Abstract

Meal preparation is an important instrumental activity of daily living~(IADL). While existing research has explored robotic assistance in meal preparation tasks such as cutting and cooking, the crucial task of peeling has received less attention. Robot-assisted peeling, conventionally a bimanual task, is challenging to deploy in the homes of care recipients using two wheelchair-mounted robot arms due to ergonomic and transferring challenges. This paper introduces a robot-assisted peeling system utilizing a single robotic arm and an assistive cutting board, inspired by the way individuals with one functional hand prepare meals. Our system incorporates a multimodal active perception module to determine whether an area on the food is peeled, a human-in-the-loop long-horizon planner to perform task planning while catering to a user's preference for peeling coverage, and a compliant controller to peel the food items. We demonstrate the system on 12 food items representing the extremes of different shapes, sizes, skin thickness, surface textures, skin vs flesh colors, and deformability.