Hardware

PR2 Platform: Capable, Safe, Robust, Modular and Extensible

PR2 is the hardware platform currently under development at Willow Garage. It is designed to be the ultimate platform for research on and development of component technologies (algorithmic, software, controls, sensors...) and applications in mobile manipulation.

• Capable: PR2 can manipulate practical objects that are all around us: brooms, frying pans, spring loaded doors, pens...

• Safe: You can run into PR2 and PR2 can run into you.*

• Robust: PR2 is being designed so that buggy code does not break the robot, allowing effective development.

• Modular: PR2 is modular at many levels including the sensors, computers, gripper, forearm and full arm.

• Extensible: Many parts of PR2 can be upgraded and reconfigured.

PR2 Features

PR2 has a mobile base, two human-scale 7-dof force-controlled arms, stereo and laser sensors, and integrated power, computation, and communications.

PR1 Prototype

PR1 was developed at Stanford University as a prototype development platform for mobile manipulation applications. For videos of PR1 and more information please visit personalrobotics.stanford.edu

* There are ways that the robot can be used to hurt a person, for example when the robot is manipulating a sharp object, in the same way a person can accidentally or maliciously hurt another person. Safety as we are defining it here refers to a robot arm that has human-safe levels of force, momentum, and kinetic energy, unlike a traditional industrial robot arm. The safe use of a robot in R&D or potential application is left to the developers and is an active area of development in the robotics community.