1,610 research outputs found
TacFR-Gripper: A Reconfigurable Fin Ray-Based Compliant Robotic Gripper with Tactile Skin for In-Hand Manipulation
This paper introduces the TacFR-Gripper, a reconfigurable Fin Ray-based soft
and compliant robotic gripper equipped with tactile skin, which can be used for
dexterous in-hand manipulation tasks. This gripper can adaptively grasp objects
of diverse shapes and stiffness levels. An array of Force Sensitive Resistor
(FSR) sensors is embedded within the robotic finger to serve as the tactile
skin, enabling the robot to perceive contact information during manipulation.
We provide theoretical analysis for gripper design, including kinematic
analysis, workspace analysis, and finite element analysis to identify the
relationship between the gripper's load and its deformation. Moreover, we
implemented a Graph Neural Network (GNN)-based tactile perception approach to
enable reliable grasping without accidental slip or excessive force.
Three physical experiments were conducted to quantify the performance of the
TacFR-Gripper. These experiments aimed to i) assess the grasp success rate
across various everyday objects through different configurations, ii) verify
the effectiveness of tactile skin with the GNN algorithm in grasping, iii)
evaluate the gripper's in-hand manipulation capabilities for object pose
control. The experimental results indicate that the TacFR-Gripper can grasp a
wide range of complex-shaped objects with a high success rate and deliver
dexterous in-hand manipulation. Additionally, the integration of tactile skin
with the GNN algorithm enhances grasp stability by incorporating tactile
feedback during manipulations. For more details of this project, please view
our website: https://sites.google.com/view/tacfr-gripper/homepage
Digital Fabrication Approaches for the Design and Development of Shape-Changing Displays
Interactive shape-changing displays enable dynamic representations of data and information through physically reconfigurable geometry. The actuated physical deformations of these displays can be utilised in a wide range of new application areas, such as dynamic landscape and topographical modelling, architectural design, physical telepresence and object manipulation. Traditionally, shape-changing displays have a high development cost in mechanical complexity, technical skills and time/finances required for fabrication. There is still a limited number of robust shape-changing displays that go beyond one-off prototypes. Specifically, there is limited focus on low-cost/accessible design and development approaches involving digital fabrication (e.g. 3D printing). To address this challenge, this thesis presents accessible digital fabrication approaches that support the development of shape-changing displays with a range of application examples â such as physical terrain modelling and interior design artefacts. Both laser cutting and 3D printing methods have been explored to ensure generalisability and accessibility for a range of potential users. The first design-led content generation explorations show that novice users, from the general public, can successfully design and present their own application ideas using the physical animation features of the display. By engaging with domain experts in designing shape-changing content to represent data specific to their work domains the thesis was able to demonstrate the utility of shape-changing displays beyond novel systems and describe practical use-case scenarios and applications through rapid prototyping methods. This thesis then demonstrates new ways of designing and building shape-changing displays that goes beyond current implementation examples available (e.g. pin arrays and continuous surface shape-changing displays). To achieve this, the thesis demonstrates how laser cutting and 3D printing can be utilised to rapidly fabricate deformable surfaces for shape-changing displays with embedded electronics. This thesis is concluded with a discussion of research implications and future direction for this work
Towards Declarative Safety Rules for Perception Specification Architectures
Agriculture has a high number of fatalities compared to other blue collar
fields, additionally population decreasing in rural areas is resulting in
decreased work force. These issues have resulted in increased focus on
improving efficiency of and introducing autonomy in agriculture. Field robots
are an increasingly promising branch of robotics targeted at full automation in
agriculture. The safety aspect however is rely addressed in connection with
safety standards, which limits the real-world applicability. In this paper we
present an analysis of a vision pipeline in connection with functional-safety
standards, in order to propose solutions for how to ascertain that the system
operates as required. Based on the analysis we demonstrate a simple mechanism
for verifying that a vision pipeline is functioning correctly, thus improving
the safety in the overall system.Comment: Presented at DSLRob 2015 (arXiv:1601.00877
Digital implementation of the cellular sensor-computers
Two different kinds of cellular sensor-processor architectures are used nowadays in various
applications. The first is the traditional sensor-processor architecture, where the sensor and the
processor arrays are mapped into each other. The second is the foveal architecture, in which a
small active fovea is navigating in a large sensor array. This second architecture is introduced
and compared here. Both of these architectures can be implemented with analog and digital
processor arrays. The efficiency of the different implementation types, depending on the used
CMOS technology, is analyzed. It turned out, that the finer the technology is, the better to use
digital implementation rather than analog
Scalable underwater assembly with reconfigurable visual fiducials
We present a scalable combined localization infrastructure deployment and
task planning algorithm for underwater assembly. Infrastructure is autonomously
modified to suit the needs of manipulation tasks based on an uncertainty model
on the infrastructure's positional accuracy. Our uncertainty model can be
combined with the noise characteristics from multiple devices. For the task
planning problem, we propose a layer-based clustering approach that completes
the manipulation tasks one cluster at a time. We employ movable visual fiducial
markers as infrastructure and an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for
manipulation tasks. The proposed task planning algorithm is computationally
simple, and we implement it on AUV without any offline computation
requirements. Combined hardware experiments and simulations over large datasets
show that the proposed technique is scalable to large areas.Comment: Submitted to ICRA 202
Homogeneous Spiking Neuromorphic System for Real-World Pattern Recognition
A neuromorphic chip that combines CMOS analog spiking neurons and memristive
synapses offers a promising solution to brain-inspired computing, as it can
provide massive neural network parallelism and density. Previous hybrid analog
CMOS-memristor approaches required extensive CMOS circuitry for training, and
thus eliminated most of the density advantages gained by the adoption of
memristor synapses. Further, they used different waveforms for pre and
post-synaptic spikes that added undesirable circuit overhead. Here we describe
a hardware architecture that can feature a large number of memristor synapses
to learn real-world patterns. We present a versatile CMOS neuron that combines
integrate-and-fire behavior, drives passive memristors and implements
competitive learning in a compact circuit module, and enables in-situ
plasticity in the memristor synapses. We demonstrate handwritten-digits
recognition using the proposed architecture using transistor-level circuit
simulations. As the described neuromorphic architecture is homogeneous, it
realizes a fundamental building block for large-scale energy-efficient
brain-inspired silicon chips that could lead to next-generation cognitive
computing.Comment: This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in IEEE
Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol 5, no.
2, June 201
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