Haptic Perception with a Robot Hand: Requirements and Realization

This paper first discusses briefly some of the recent ideas of perceptual psychology on the human haptic system particularly those of J.J. Gibson and Klatzky and Lederman. Following this introduction, we present some of the requirements of robotic haptic sensing and the results of experiments using a Utah/MIT dexterous robot hand to derive geometric object information using active sensing

Ground Robotic Hand Applications for the Space Program study (GRASP)

This document reports on a NASA-STDP effort to address research interests of the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) through a study entitled, Ground Robotic-Hand Applications for the Space Program (GRASP). The primary objective of the GRASP study was to identify beneficial applications of specialized end-effectors and robotic hand devices for automating any ground operations which are performed at the Kennedy Space Center. Thus, operations for expendable vehicles, the Space Shuttle and its components, and all payloads were included in the study. Typical benefits of automating operations, or augmenting human operators performing physical tasks, include: reduced costs; enhanced safety and reliability; and reduced processing turnaround time

Object Dexterous Manipulation in Hand Based on Finite State Machine

Li Q, Meier M, Haschke R, Ritter H, Bolder B. Object Dexterous Manipulation in Hand Based on Finite State Machine. In: Proc. ICMA2012. 2012: 1185-1190

Grasp Point Optimization by Online Exploration of Unknown Object Surface

Li Q, Haschke R, Bolder B, Ritter H. Grasp Point Optimization by Online Exploration of Unknown Object Surface. Presented at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, Osaka

Robot Grasping and Manipulation: A Prospective

``A simple handshake would give them away''. This is how Anthony Hopkins' fictional character, Dr Robert Ford, summarises a particular flaw of the 2016 science-fiction \emph{Westworld}'s hosts. In the storyline, Westworld is a futuristic theme park and the hosts are autonomous robots engineered to be indistinguishable from the human guests, except for their hands that have not been perfected yet. In another classic science-fiction saga, scientists unlock the secrets of full synthetic intelligence, Skynet, by reverse engineering a futuristic hand. In both storylines, reality inspires fiction on one crucial point: designing hands and reproducing robust and reliable manipulation actions is one of the biggest challenges in robotics. Solving this problem would lead us to a new, improved era of autonomy. A century ago, the third industrial revolution brought robots into the assembly lines, changing our way of working forever. The next revolution has already started by bringing us artificial intelligence (AI) assistants, enhancing our quality of life in our jobs and everyday lives--even combating worldwide pandemics

Analysis and Observations from the First Amazon Picking Challenge

This paper presents a overview of the inaugural Amazon Picking Challenge along with a summary of a survey conducted among the 26 participating teams. The challenge goal was to design an autonomous robot to pick items from a warehouse shelf. This task is currently performed by human workers, and there is hope that robots can someday help increase efficiency and throughput while lowering cost. We report on a 28-question survey posed to the teams to learn about each team's background, mechanism design, perception apparatus, planning and control approach. We identify trends in this data, correlate it with each team's success in the competition, and discuss observations and lessons learned based on survey results and the authors' personal experiences during the challenge