Matthew R. Stein

Interactive Internet artistry

The paper describes painting on the World Wide Web with the PumaPaint project. The project is a web site allowing any user with a Java-compatible web browser to control a PUMA 760 robot. The site allows users to perform the single task of painting on an easel with real brushes and paint. We see the contribution of the project deriving mainly from the chosen task of painting. Rather than providing the user a general ability to move and observe a robot, our interface is focused on a specific task. The interface provides the opportunity to achieve remarkable subtlety, greatly affecting the resulting visual impression. The real interest in the project for the authors, and the motivation for developing it, is the artwork produced.

The PumaPaint Project

The PumaPaint Project is an online robot that allows World Wide Web users to create original artwork. This paper describes the PumaPaint Project at two locations: the original site at Wilkes University and the site at Roger Williams University. Each site allows control of a PUMA robot equipped with four paintbrushes, jars of red, green, blue and yellow paint and white paper attached to a vertical easel. A Java™ interface executing within a web browser allows interactive control of the robot. This interface contains two windows showing live camera views of the easel and various controls for connecting to the robot, viewing the task status and controlling the painting task. The original site operated from June 1998 to March 2000 with approximately 25,000 unique-addressed machines downloading the interface to produce about 500 canvases. The new site has been in operation since August 2002. This paper discusses the authors experiences in operating the original site, and the motivation for and the challenges of reviving the site in its current location.

Java interface for asserting interactive telerobotic control

Many current web-based telerobotic interfaces use HyperText Markup Language (HTML) forms to assert user control on a robot. While acceptable for some tasks, a Java interface can provide better client-server interaction. The Puma Paint project is a joint effort between the Department of Computing Sciences at Villanova University and the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Wilkes University. THe project utilizes a Java applet to control a Unimation Puma 1760 robot during the task of painting on a canvas. The interface allows the user to control the paint strokes as well as the pressure of a brush on the canvas and how deep the brush is dipped into a paint jar. To provide immediate feedback, a virtual canvas models the effects of the controls as the artist paints. Live color video feedback is provided, allowing the user to view the actual results of the robots motions. Unlike the step-at-a-time model of many web forms, the application permits the user to assert interactive control. The greater the complexity of the interaction between the robot and its environment, the greater the need for high quality information presentation to the user. The use of Java allows the sophistication of the user interface to be raised to the level required for satisfactory control. This paper describes the Puma Paint project, including the interface and communications model. It also examines the challenges of using the Internet as the medium of communications and the challenges of encoding free ranging motions for transmission from the client to the robot.

A cross-country teleprogramming experiment

The teleprogramming system is a supervisory control approach to time delayed teleoperation that incorporates predictive graphics and reactive skills to accomplish dexterous manipulation tasks in the presence of significant time delay. This paper presents an experimental effort to validate the teleprogramming system using the GRASP Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania as the operator station and the TROPICS Laboratory of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the remote site. The teleprogramming experiment involved operator supervisory control of a robot performing puncture and slice operations on the thermal blanket securing tape of a satellite repair mission sub-task This experiment was successfully performed in August, 1994 using the Internet as the sole medium of communication. During experimentation, messages experienced time-varying time delay between three and fifteen seconds with an average delay of approximately six seconds.

Internet robotics: an educational experiment

Robotics is a subject which captures the imagination of undergraduate students in many disciplines including Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering. Despite this interest, when the topic is covered at all in an undergraduate program, the critical hands-on component of the course is often omitted. This is due to a number of causes ranging from the complexity of the subject to the availability of equipment. This paper describes a project to allow experimentation with robots through the Internet for the purpose of undergraduate education. An experimental system has been developed which links computer science students at the University of Wisconsin/LaCrosse with robots and Mechanical Engineering Students at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre PA. Unlike such systems constructed for the purpose of experimentation with time delay for shallow space or undersea manipulation, the focus of this system is the education of undergraduate students. This paper discusses how the educational goals affect the design of this system as well as the selection of tasks. Although there are clear advantages in capital and maintenance costs to sharing equipment, the emphasis here is on the significant educational benefits of this type of system. We show that remote operation leads to an understanding of the complexity and difficulty in specifying robot motions for an uncontrolled environment. This understanding is very difficult to achieve in a simulated or local settings where students have much greater control over the execution environment of the robot. The system was constructed in the summer of 1995, with experiments performed during the fall semester of 1995. Results of the experiments run by the joint undergraduate research groups as well as the associated educational outcomes are presented.

The Pumapaint Project: Long Term Usage Trends And The Move To Three Dimensions

Online since the summer of 1998, the PumaPaint project can be considered an elder statesman of networked robotics. Although never a profound technical achievement to attach a PUMA robot to a network, the extended period of operation permits interesting observations of long-term usage trends, comparison of operation through several generations of user interface and a voluminous body of artwork to consider. This paper will present a discussion of long-term usage trends of the PumaPaint project over six years of operation at two locations. We will present a study of the most interesting artwork produced in the last two years and discuss trends from the perspective of the canvas. We will also present a case study of a recent phenomenon: the appearance of a dedicated and persistent vandal who returned to the site nightly for a period of several months. The second section of the paper will detail our current project: moving the PumaPaint concept to three dimensions. We are continuing the theme of artistic creation, this time allowing web users to model clay. We have partially completed construction on a pair of opposing anthropomorphic hands with force sensing capability and expect to have these operational by spring 2005. This paper will present the “RoboSculpt” concept; detail the design and proposed user interface and present the progress to date.

Sharing resources over the Internet for robotics education

At small, undergraduate institutions, resources are scarce and the educational challenges are great. In the area of robotics, the need for physical experimentation to reinforce and validate theoretical concepts is particularly strong, yet the requirements of maintaining a robotics laboratory can be onerous to teaching faculty. Experimental robotics often requires a software sophistication well beyond that which can be expected from undergraduate mechanical engineers, who are most often only required to write simple programs in manufacturer supplied languages. This paper describes an effort to provide an undergraduate robotics research experience in the presence of these challenges. We have teamed undergraduate mechanical engineers at Wilkes University with undergraduate computer scientists at University of Wisconsin - La Crosse in a collaborative experimental effort. The goal of this project is to remotely control a PUMA 760 robot located at Wilkes University from an operator station located at UW-La Crosse.

Design of a new PumaPaint interface and its use in one year of operation

The PumaPaint project is an online robot that allows World Wide Web users to remotely create original artwork. The original site located at Wilkes University operated from June of 1998 to March of 2000 with approximately 25,000 unique-addressed machines downloading the interface to produce about 500 canvases. The new site at Roger Williams University opened to the public in August of 2002. After noticing that over fifty-percent of the machines downloading the interface were located outside of the United States we decided to create a more elegant and intuitive interface aimed at users from varied countries and varied ages. This work addresses issues, concerns, and resolutions developed to provide this updated interface. The current site was updated integrating this new interface in November of 2002 and evaluation of the interface is currently underway.

Project update: sharing resources over the Internet for robotics education

At small, undergraduate institutions, resources are scarce and the educational challenges are great. In the area of robotics, the need for physical experimentation to reinforce and validate theoretical concepts is particularly strong, yet the requirements of maintaining a robotics laboratory can be onerous to teaching faculty. Experimental robotics often requires a software sophistication well beyond that which can be expected from undergraduate mechanical engineers, who are most often only required to write simple programs in manufacturer supplied languages. This paper is the third in a series describing an effort to provide an undergraduate robotics research experience in the presence of these challenges. For the last three years we have teamed undergraduate mechanical engineers at Wilkes University with undergraduate computer scientists at University of Wisconsin - La Crosse in a collaborative experimental effort. The goal of this project is to remotely control a PUMA 760 robot located at Wilkes University form an operator station located at UW-La Crosse.

Internet robotics: transmitting images

This paper presents results from an ongoing collaboration between Wilkes University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in using the Internet for undergraduate education in robotics. An interface has been developed which allows computer science students at UW-La Crosse to control a robotic manipulator on the Wilkes University campus using images transmitted from Wilkes. The focus of this paper is the interface which monitors the image transmission and the control which the student user has over that transmission. An option in the interface allows the user to crop the image to a desired size in order to focus on a specific feature. Results of experiments performed by the joint undergraduate research groups at both institutions in using this component, as well as the associated educational outcomes, are presented here.