Tecnologie innovative per il trattamento di reflui di comunità soggette a fluttuazioni di popolazione

Dipartimento di Modellistica per l'Ingegneria, Dottorato di Ricerca in: Ambiente, Salute e Processi Ecosostenibili, Ciclo XXI,a.a. 2007-2008Università della Calabri

Adhesion State Estimation for Electrostatic Gripper Based on Online Capacitance Measure

Electroadhesion is a suitable technology for developing grippers for applications where fragile, compliant or variable shape objects need to be grabbed and where a retention action is typically preferred to a compression force. This article presents a self-sensing technique for electroadhesive devices (EAD) based on the capacitance measure. Specifically, we demonstrate that measuring the variation of the capacitance between electrodes of an EAD during the adhesion can provide useful information to automatically detect the successful grip of an object and the possible loss of adhesion during manipulation. To this aim, a dedicated electronic circuit is developed that is able to measure capacitance variations while the high voltage required for the adhesion is activated. A test bench characterization is presented to evaluate the self-sensing of capacitance during different states: (1) the EAD is far away from the object to be grasped; (2) the EAD is in contact with the object, but the voltage is not active (i.e., no adhesion); and (3) the EAD is activated and attached to the object. Correlation between the applied voltage, object material and shape and capacitance is made. The self-sensing EAD is then demonstrated in a closed-loop robotic application that employs a robot manipulator arm to pick and place objects of different kinds

Anywhere Is Possible: An Avatar Platform for Social Telepresence With Full Perception of Physical Interaction

Robotic avatar technology has the potential to impact the future of human connectivity, transporting the sense of a human’s presence to a remote location anywhere and in real-time. In this regard, the recent ANA Avatar XPRIZE challenge fostered the development of the ultimate generation of non-autonomous robotic avatar designs. This paper is devoted to introducing our system proposal, allowing intuitive motion-based control and multi-modal feedback. The teleoperated robot endorses an anthropomorphic upper body with dual arms and dexterous hands for fine manipulation of even small objects, as well as an omnidirectional platform for improved and safe locomotion. Special focus is pointed at the crucial challenge of providing self-body perception to the operator, in particular regarding control of the arms and rendering of haptic sensations. To this end, we propose an upper-limb exoskeleton and a teleoperation architecture allowing retargeting of the operator’s skills and receiving tactile and kinesthetic force feedback with realistic and informative perception of the own’s arms. Lastly, the platform was validated during laboratory and challenge missions mimicking several social, cooperative, and cultural scenarios from which we report on the lesson learned and future improvements