4 research outputs found
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Sensing and Control for Robust Grasping with Simple Hardware
Robots can move, see, and navigate in the real world outside carefully structured factories, but they cannot yet grasp and manipulate objects without human intervention. Two key barriers are the complexity of current approaches, which require complicated hardware or precise perception to function effectively, and the challenge of understanding system performance in a tractable manner given the wide range of factors that impact successful grasping. This thesis presents sensors and simple control algorithms that relax the requirements on robot hardware, and a framework to understand the capabilities and limitations of grasping systems.Engineering and Applied Science
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The Feel of MEMS Barometers: Inexpensive and Easily Customized Tactile Array Sensors
This article presents a new approach to the construction of tactile array sensors based on barometric pressure sensor chips and standard printed circuit boards (PCBs). The chips include tightly integrated instrumentation amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, pressure and temperature sensors, and control circuitry that provides excellent signal quality over standard digital bus interfaces. The resulting array electronics can be easily encapsulated with soft polymers to provide robust and compliant grasping surfaces for specific hand designs. The use of standard commercial off-the-shelf technologies means that only basic electrical and mechanical skills are required to build effective tactile sensors for new applications. The performance evaluation of prototype arrays demonstrates excellent linearity (typically <1%) and low noise (<0.01 N). External addressing circuitry allows multiple sensors to communicate on the same bus at more than 100 Hz per sensor element. Sensors can be mounted with as close as -mm spacing, and spatial impulse response tests show that linear solid-mechanics-based signal processing is feasible. This approach promises to make sensitive, robust, and inexpensive tactile sensing available for a wide range of robotics and human-interface applications.Engineering and Applied Science
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Contact sensing and grasping performance of compliant hands
Limitations in modern sensing technologies result in large errors in sensed target object geometry and location in unstructured environments. As a result, positioning a robotic end-effector includes inherent error that will often lead to unsuccessful grasps. In previous work, we demonstrated that optimized configuration, compliance, viscosity, and adaptability in the mechanical structure of a robot hand facilitates reliable grasping in unstructured environments, even with purely feedforward control of the hand. In this paper we describe the addition of a simple contact sensor to the fingerpads of the SDM Hand (Shape Deposition Manufactured Hand), which, along with a basic control algorithm, significantly expands the grasp space of the hand and reduces contact forces during the acquisition phase of the grasp. The combination of the passive mechanics of the SDM Hand along with this basic sensor suite enables positioning errors of over 5 cm in any direction. In the context of mobile manipulation, the performance demonstrated here may reduce the need for much of the complex array of sensing currently utilized on mobile platforms, greatly increase reliability, and speed task execution, which can often be prohibitively slow.Engineering and Applied Science
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Determining object geometry with compliance and simple sensors
To determine object geometry in unstructured environments, sensors must be mechanically robust, must exert only low forces on objects during exploration, and must be able to scan large regions efficiently without risk of damaging objects or sensors. Joint-angle sensors on compliant joints provide an appealing option for this task. An algorithmic framework is presented that allows them to be used for contact detection and to determine object geometry without requiring tactile arrays or other complicated contact location sensors. This volumetric approach to using proprioceptive sensors provides improvements in accuracy over other existing approaches based on the intersection of planes and lines.Engineering and Applied Science