Port-Hamiltonian modeling for soft-finger manipulation

In this paper, we present a port-Hamiltonian model of a multi-fingered robotic hand, with soft-pads, while grasping and manipulating an object. The algebraic constraints of the interconnected systems are represented by a geometric object, called Dirac structure. This provides a powerful way to describe the non-contact to contact transition and contact viscoelasticity, by using the concepts of energy flows and power preserving interconnections. Using the port based model, an Intrinsically Passive Controller (IPC) is used to control the internal forces. Simulation results validate the model and demonstrate the effectiveness of the port-based approach

A Human Gesture Mapping Method to Control a Multi‐Functional Hand for Robot‐Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery: The MUSHA Case

This work presents a novel technique to control multi-functional hand for robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery. We tested the technique using the MUSHA multi-functional hand, a robot-aided minimally invasive surgery tool with more degrees of freedom than the standard commercial end-effector of the da Vinci robot. Extra degrees of freedom require the development of a proper control strategy to guarantee high performance and avoid an increasing complexity of control consoles. However, developing reliable control algorithms while reducing the control side's mechanical complexity is still an open challenge. In the proposed solution, we present a control strategy that projects the human hand motions into the robot actuation space. The human hand motions are tracked by a LeapMotion camera and mapped into the actuation space of the virtualized end-effector. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated in a twofold manner. Firstly, we verified the Lyapunov stability of the algorithm, then an user study with 10 subjects assessed the intuitiveness and usability of the system

Acoustic response of a feeding system to high-frequency transverse acoustic field

International audienceThe acoustic coupling between the injection system and the acoustic fluctuations in liquid rocket engine combustion chambers is an important issue in the understanding of the thermo-acoustic instability phenomenon. This paper presents results of a large parametric investigation of a two-phase injection system acoustic response, to the excitation produced by a high-amplitude transverse acoustic field forced into a main resonant cavity. Two domes, one for the gas and one for the liquid, were expressly designed to feed three identical coaxial injectors. Characterization of domes internal mode shapes were performed by measuring pressure signals at different locations in the domes. Experimental mode shapes showed good agreement with those predicted by numerical simulations. Acoustic pressure amplitudes up to 17% of the the one induced in the main cavity can be found in both gas and liquid dome. The maximum acoustic response is observed in a configuration in which acoustic boundary conditions does not correspond to the maximum injection system solicitation conditions

Acoustic response of a feeding system to high-frequency transverse acoustic field

International audienceThe acoustic coupling between the injection system and the acoustic fluctuations in liquid rocket engine combustion chambers is an important issue in the understanding of the thermo-acoustic instability phenomenon. This paper presents results of a large parametric investigation of a two-phase injection system acoustic response, to the excitation produced by a high-amplitude transverse acoustic field forced into a main resonant cavity. Two domes, one for the gas and one for the liquid, were expressly designed to feed three identical coaxial injectors. Characterization of domes internal mode shapes were performed by measuring pressure signals at different locations in the domes. Experimental mode shapes showed good agreement with those predicted by numerical simulations. Acoustic pressure amplitudes up to 17% of the the one induced in the main cavity can be found in both gas and liquid dome. The maximum acoustic response is observed in a configuration in which acoustic boundary conditions does not correspond to the maximum injection system solicitation conditions

Leveraging Kernelized Synergies on Shared Subspace for Precision Grasping and Dexterous Manipulation

Manipulation in contrast to grasping is a trajectorial task that needs to use dexterous hands. Improving the dexterity of robot hands, increases the controller complexity and thus requires to use the concept of postural synergies. Inspired from postural synergies, this research proposes a new framework called kernelized synergies that focuses on the re-usability of same subspace for precision grasping and dexterous manipulation. In this work, the computed subspace of postural synergies is parameterized by kernelized movement primitives to preserve its grasping and manipulation characteristics and allows its reuse for new objects. The grasp stability of proposed framework is assessed with the force closure quality index, as a cost function. For performance evaluation, the proposed framework is initially tested on two different simulated robot hand models using the Syngrasp toolbox and experimentally, four complex grasping and manipulation tasks are performed and reported. Results confirm the hand agnostic approach of proposed framework and its generalization to distinct objects irrespective of their dimensions

Response of coaxial air-assisted liquid jets in an acoustic field: atomization and droplets clustering

International audienceHigh-frequency combustion instabilities have been proven to be extremely harmful to liquid rocket engine operation , even leading to the destruction of the combustion chamber. The coupling between acoustic field and combustion heat release rate in the combustion chamber is considered as the driving phenomenon. Experiments have shown that intense acoustic field can deeply affect atomization process thereby causing a non-uniform heat release distribution which can couple with the resonant mode shapes of the combustion chamber and consequently trigger or sustain combustion instability. The effects of acoustic acting on atomization of coaxial air-assisted liquid jets have been investigated experimentally and results are presented in this paper. The experimental setup is composed of three coaxial injectors installed on the roof of a semi-open resonant cavity provided with 4 compression drivers. An acoustic field corresponding to the 2 nd transverse mode of the cavity is forced into that at a frequency of 1 kHz. Acoustic levels up to 174 dB are produced. High speed visualizations are performed in order to observe the response of the jet to the acoustic perturbations. In the case of low Weber numbers (We < 30) the jet can be considered as cylindrical and depending on the position of the injector with respect to the acoustic axis different responses can be observed. If the injector is placed in correspondence of the velocity antinode the jet is flattened into a liquid sheet perpendicular to the acoustic axis, if the injector is located in correspondence of an intensity antinode the jet is deviated toward the velocity antinode. Combined response can be observed at intermediate positions. For higher Weber numbers the jet is no more cylindrical and a spray is formed, characterized by with a certain spray angle. Such a spray is can still be affected by the acoustics but it is not always possible to get evidence of this from observation of raw images. To quantify these effects, image analyses have been carried-out to determine how spatial distributions of droplets are affected by acoustics. Results are presented for Weber numbers ranging from 30 to 1500, with and without acoustic. Clustering of droplets is shown as well as improvement of atomization process

Experimental evaluation of synergy-based in-hand manipulation

In this paper, the problem of in-hand dexterous manipulation has been addressed on the base of postural synergies analysis. The computation of the synergies subspace able to represent grasp and manipulation tasks as trajectories connecting suitable configuration sets is based on the observation of the human hand behavior. Five subjects are required to reproduce themost natural grasping configuration belonging to the considered grasping taxonomy and the boundary configurations for those grasps that admit internal manipulation. The measurements on the human hand and the reconstruction of the human grasp configurations are obtained using a vision-based mapping method that assume the kinematics of the robotic hand, used for the experiments, as a simplified model of the human hand. The analysis to determine the most suitable set of synergies able to reproduce the selected grasps and the relative allowed internal manipulation has been carried out. The grasping and in-hand manipulation tasks have been reproduced bymeans of linear interpolation of the boundary configurations in the selected synergies subspace and the results have been experimentally tested on the UB Hand IV

Acoustic response of an injection system to high-frequency transverse acoustic fields

International audienceThe acoustic coupling between the injection system and the acoustic fluctuations in liquid rocket engine combustion chambers is an important issue in the understanding of the thermo-acoustic instability phenomenon. This paper presents the results of a wide-ranging parametric investigation of the acoustic response of a two-phase injection system submitted to a forced high-amplitude transverse acoustic field. Two domes, one for the gas and one for the liquid, were expressly designed to feed three identical coaxial injectors. The internal mode shapes of the domes were characterized by measuring pressure signals at different locations in the domes. Experimental mode shapes showed good agreement with those predicted by numerical simulations. Acoustic pressure amplitudes up to 23% of those induced in the main cavity can be found in both the gas and liquid domes. The response efficiency in a dome depends on the position of the injectors' exit in the acoustic field

The PRISMA Hand II: A Sensorized Robust Hand for Adaptive Grasp and In-Hand Manipulation

Although substantial progresses have been made in building anthropomorphic robotic hands, lack of mechanical robustness, dexterity and force sensation still restrains wide adoption of robotic prostheses. This paper presents the design and preliminary evaluation of the PRISMA hand II, which is a mechanically robust anthropomorphic hand developed at the PRISMA Lab of University of Naples Federico II. The hand is highly underactuated, as the 19 finger joints are driven by three motors via elastic tendons. Nevertheless, the hand can performs not only adaptive grasps but also in-hand manipulation. The hand uses rolling contact joints, which is compliant in multiple directions. Force sensor are integrated to each fingertip in order to provide force feedback during grasping and manipulation. Preliminary experiments have been performed to evaluate the hand. Results show that the hand can perform various grasps and in-hand manipulation, while the structure can withstand severe disarticulation. This suggests that the proposed design can be a viable solution for robust and dexterous prosthetic hands

Portable dVRK: an augmented V-REP simulator of the da Vinci Research Kit

The da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) is a first generation da Vinci robot repurposed as a research platform and coupled with software and controllers developed by research users. An already quite wide community is currently sharing the dVRK (32 systems in 28 sites worldwide). The access to the robotic system for training surgeons and for developing new surgical procedures, tools and new control modalities is still difficult due to the limited availability and high maintenance costs. The development of simulation tools provides a low cost, easy and safe alternative to the use of the real platform for preliminary research and training activities. The Portable dVRK, which is described in this work, is based on a V-REP simulator of the dVRK patient side and endoscopic camera manipulators which are controlled through two haptic interfaces and a 3D viewer, respectively. The V-REP simulator is augmented with a physics engine allowing to render the interaction of new developed tools with soft objects. Full integration in the ROS control architecture makes the simulator flexible and easy to be interfaced with other possible devices. Several scenes have been implemented to illustrate performance and potentials of the developed simulator