ExtPerFC: An Efficient 2D and 3D Perception Hardware-Software Framework for Mobile Cobot

As the reliability of the robot's perception correlates with the number of integrated sensing modalities to tackle uncertainty, a practical solution to manage these sensors from different computers, operate them simultaneously, and maintain their real-time performance on the existing robotic system with minimal effort is needed. In this work, we present an end-to-end software-hardware framework, namely ExtPerFC, that supports both conventional hardware and software components and integrates machine learning object detectors without requiring an additional dedicated graphic processor unit (GPU). We first design our framework to achieve real-time performance on the existing robotic system, guarantee configuration optimization, and concentrate on code reusability. We then mathematically model and utilize our transfer learning strategies for 2D object detection and fuse them into depth images for 3D depth estimation. Lastly, we systematically test the proposed framework on the Baxter robot with two 7-DOF arms, a four-wheel mobility base, and an Intel RealSense D435i RGB-D camera. The results show that the robot achieves real-time performance while executing other tasks (e.g., map building, localization, navigation, object detection, arm moving, and grasping) simultaneously with available hardware like Intel onboard CPUS/GPUs on distributed computers. Also, to comprehensively control, program, and monitor the robot system, we design and introduce an end-user application. The source code is available at https://github.com/tuantdang/perception_framework.