A Framework to Illustrate Kinematic Behavior of Mechanisms by Haptic Feedback

The kinematic properties of mechanisms are well known by the researchers and teachers. The theory based on the study of Jacobian matrices allows us to explain, for example, the singular configuration. However, in many cases, the physical sense of such properties is difficult to explain to students. The aim of this article is to use haptic feedback to render to the user the signification of different kinematic indices. The framework uses a Phantom Omni and a serial and parallel mechanism with two degrees of freedom. The end-effector of both mechanisms can be moved either by classical mouse, or Phantom Omni with or without feedback

Dynamic Active Constraints for Surgical Robots using Vector Field Inequalities

Robotic assistance allows surgeons to perform dexterous and tremor-free procedures, but robotic aid is still underrepresented in procedures with constrained workspaces, such as deep brain neurosurgery and endonasal surgery. In these procedures, surgeons have restricted vision to areas near the surgical tooltips, which increases the risk of unexpected collisions between the shafts of the instruments and their surroundings. In this work, our vector-field-inequalities method is extended to provide dynamic active-constraints to any number of robots and moving objects sharing the same workspace. The method is evaluated with experiments and simulations in which robot tools have to avoid collisions autonomously and in real-time, in a constrained endonasal surgical environment. Simulations show that with our method the combined trajectory error of two robotic systems is optimal. Experiments using a real robotic system show that the method can autonomously prevent collisions between the moving robots themselves and between the robots and the environment. Moreover, the framework is also successfully verified under teleoperation with tool-tissue interactions.Comment: Accepted on T-RO 2019, 19 Page

Generation of dynamic motion for anthropomorphic systems under prioritized equality and inequality constraints

In this paper, we propose a solution to compute full-dynamic motions for a humanoid robot, accounting for various kinds of constraints such as dynamic balance or joint limits. As a first step, we propose a unification of task-based control schemes, in inverse kinematics or inverse dynamics. Based on this unification, we generalize the cascade of quadratic programs that were developed for inverse kinematics only. Then, we apply the solution to generate, in simulation, wholebody motions for a humanoid robot in unilateral contact with the ground, while ensuring the dynamic balance on a non horizontal surface

Towards Assistive Feeding with a General-Purpose Mobile Manipulator

General-purpose mobile manipulators have the potential to serve as a versatile form of assistive technology. However, their complexity creates challenges, including the risk of being too difficult to use. We present a proof-of-concept robotic system for assistive feeding that consists of a Willow Garage PR2, a high-level web-based interface, and specialized autonomous behaviors for scooping and feeding yogurt. As a step towards use by people with disabilities, we evaluated our system with 5 able-bodied participants. All 5 successfully ate yogurt using the system and reported high rates of success for the system's autonomous behaviors. Also, Henry Evans, a person with severe quadriplegia, operated the system remotely to feed an able-bodied person. In general, people who operated the system reported that it was easy to use, including Henry. The feeding system also incorporates corrective actions designed to be triggered either autonomously or by the user. In an offline evaluation using data collected with the feeding system, a new version of our multimodal anomaly detection system outperformed prior versions.Comment: This short 4-page paper was accepted and presented as a poster on May. 16, 2016 in ICRA 2016 workshop on 'Human-Robot Interfaces for Enhanced Physical Interactions' organized by Arash Ajoudani, Barkan Ugurlu, Panagiotis Artemiadis, Jun Morimoto. It was peer reviewed by one reviewe

Optimal Image-Based Guidance of Mobile Manipulators using Direct Visual Servoing

This paper presents a direct image-based controller to perform the guidance of a mobile manipulator using image-based control. An eye-in-hand camera is employed to perform the guidance of a mobile differential platform with a seven degrees-of-freedom robot arm. The presented approach is based on an optimal control framework and it is employed to control mobile manipulators during the tracking of image trajectories taking into account robot dynamics. The direct approach allows us to take both the manipulator and base dynamics into account. The proposed image-based controllers consider the optimization of the motor signals sent to the mobile manipulator during the tracking of image trajectories by minimizing the control force and torque. As the results show, the proposed direct visual servoing system uses the eye-in-hand camera images for concurrently controlling both the base platform and robot arm. The use of the optimal framework allows us to derive different visual controllers with different dynamical behaviors during the tracking of image trajectories.This research was supported by the Valencia Regional Government through project GV/2018/050