The optimal use of vision as part of the manipulation of micron-sized objects

This project concerns the development and integration of a sub-millimeter objects manipulation setup and will take part in a CTI project named “Manipulating Microscale Objects with Nanoscale Precision”. On the way of manipulating microscale objects, we need to build a first setup adapted for sub-millimeter objects in order to be able to perform experiences and to validate some assumptions and choices. In the Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques (LSRO), ultra high precision parallel robots are developed and, in particular, the Delta3 a micromanipulator that presents three degrees of freedom (XYZ) and has a range of 4mm. This robot might be used within this project. The goal of this project is to develop an interface between vision system, robot and user that will allow measuring the position repeatability of different microscale objects during a manipulation task

A Static Intrinsically Passive Controller to Enhance Grasp Stability of Object-based Mapping between Human and Robotic Hands

Abstract — Replicating human hand capabilities on robotic hands is a great challenge in robotics. The high complexity of mechanical and actuation systems of available robotic device can be, however, considerably mitigated if a human inspired control is considered. In this paper the application of an objectbased mapping to the control of robot hands is presented. The basic idea is to use a virtual object, e.g. a virtual sphere, to capture human hand motion generating suitable reference signals for a low level controller of the robotic hand. The low level controller considered, which shares the idea of virtual object to reduce the complexity of the control, is the static Intrinsically Passive Controller (s-IPC). This controller is inspired by the dynamic IPC, but provides a simpler and more efficient implementation. The proposed approach allows to map motion of a human hand model, controlled on the reduced subspace of postural synergies, onto robotic hands guaranteeing the stability of the robotic grasp. This concept, which has been experimentally validated in the paper, can be exploit for complex planning methods or used in telemanipulation application. I