A book version will be published by The MIT Press in 2001. Manipulation Lab Publications Matt's Research Interests Humans understand how the world works, in a way that enables them to manipulate the world very effectively.
Robots lack that understanding.
My goal is to discover the nature of that understanding. Below are brief descriptions of a variety of projects to explore these issues. They should be able to perceive the state of a desktop, to navigate the desktop, and manipulate objects commonly found on a desktop. I've begun a project to explore the desktop as a task domain. Our first system is a mobile robot which uses its wheels for manipulation as well as for locomotion.