Traclabs Inc.

Over Previous Phase I, Ii, and Iii Nasa Sbir Projects, Traclabs Has Created a Software Toolkit for Programming and Controlling Humanoid Robots and Other Mobile Manipulators. This Open-source Toolkit, Called the Cartesian-based Affordance Template Suite for Manipulation (or Craftsman), Incorporates State-of-the-art Motion Generation Techniques Along With Principles of User Interface Design and Software Engineering to Fill a Gap in the Robotics Research Community for Advanced Sensor-driven Application Development. While This Toolkit Was Initially Supported by Nasa, Further Support From a Large-scale Automotive Client and Robotics Manufacturers Has Allowed Traclabs to Mature the Code-base for Its Deployment in Industrial and Commercial Contexts. Despite This Commercialization Success, the Capabilities of Craftsman Motion Control Have Mainly Been Focused on a Small Set of Robot-independent Trajectory Generation Algorithms, and the Deployment of the System Has Been Limited to Classes of Manipulation Tasks Where Goals Can Be Represented as Spatial Waypoints for the Robot S End Effectors or Navigation Systems. It Is the Goal of This Work to Refactor Craftsman Into a More General Plugin-based Control Framework That Supports Techniques for Advanced Motion Planning, Reactive Control, and Automous Stance Location. We Argue That This Refactor Would Be Beneficial by Providing a Common Application Programming Framework That Can Be Used on Multiple Systems in a Variety of Environments, and Where New Functionality Can Quickly Be Integrated to Facilitate a Number of Nasa-relevant Missions. We Call This Next Generation of Out Toolkit