Related papers: A Flexible Piezoresistive/Self-Capacitive Hybrid F…
Dexterous manipulation of objects through fine control of physical contacts is essential for many important tasks of daily living. A fundamental ability underlying fine contact control is compliant control, \textit{i.e.}, controlling the…
Robots have been brought to work close to humans in many scenarios. For coexistence and collaboration, robots should be safe and pleasant for humans to interact with. To this end, the robots could be both physically soft with multimodal…
Mechanically characterizing the human-machine interface is essential to understanding user behavior and optimizing wearable robot performance. This interface has been challenging to sensorize due to manufacturing complexity and non-linear…
This work presents a method of incorporating low-cost capacitive tactile sensors on a soft socially assistive robot platform. By embedding conductive thread into the robot's crocheted exterior, we formed a set of low-cost, flexible…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
The most common sensing modalities found in a robot perception system are vision and touch, which together can provide global and highly localized data for manipulation. However, these sensing modalities often fail to adequately capture the…
The Industry 4.0 paradigm emphasizes the crucial benefits that collaborative robots, i.e., robots able to work alongside and together with humans, could bring to the whole production process. In this context, an enabling technology yet…
This paper introduces a novel six-axis force/torque sensor tailored for compact and lightweight legged robots. Unlike traditional strain gauge-based sensors, the proposed non-contact design employs photocouplers, enhancing resistance to…
Industrial robots become increasingly prevalent, resulting in a growing need for intuitive, comforting human-robot collaboration. We present a user-aware robotic system that adapts to operator behavior in real time while non-intrusively…
While parallel grippers and multi-fingered robotic hands are well developed and commonly used in structured settings, it remains a challenge in robotics to design a highly articulated robotic hand that can be comparable to human hands to…
What is considered safe for a robot operator during physical human-robot collaboration (HRC) is specified in corresponding HRC standards (e.g., ISO/TS 15066). The regime that allows collisions between the moving robot and the operator,…
This paper presents a novel design for a compact, lightweight 6-axis force/torque sensor intended for use in legged robots. The design promotes easy manufacturing and cost reduction, while introducing innovative calibration methods that…
Grasping an unknown object is difficult for robot hands. When the characteristics of the object are unknown, knowing how to plan the speed at and width to which the fingers are narrowed is difficult. In this paper, we propose a method to…
Soft robotics focuses on designing robots with highly deformable materials, allowing them to adapt and operate safely and reliably in unstructured and variable environments. While soft robots offer increased compliance over rigid body…
We describe a single fingertip-mounted sensing system for robot manipulation that provides proximity (pre-touch), contact detection (touch), and force sensing (post-touch). The sensor system consists of optical time-of-flight range…
Soft robotic fingers can improve adaptability in grasping and manipulation, compensating for geometric variation in object or environmental contact, but today lack force capacity and fine dexterity. Integrated tactile sensors can provide…
In this paper, we present a touch technology to achieve tactile interactivity for human-robot interaction (HRI) in soft robotics. By combining a capacitive touch sensor with an online solid mechanics simulation provided by the SOFA…
Hybrid rigid-soft robots combine the precision of rigid manipulators with the compliance and adaptability of soft arms, offering a promising approach for versatile grasping in unstructured environments. However, coordinating hybrid robots…
Contact feedback is essential for contact-rich robotic manipulation, as it allows the robot to detect subtle interaction changes and adjust its actions accordingly. Six-axis force-torque sensors are commonly used to obtain contact feedback,…
Contact force is a natural way for humans to interact with the physical world around us. However, most of our interactions with the digital world are largely based on a simple binary sense of touch (contact or no contact). Similarly, when…