Related papers: Beyond Humanoid Prosthetic Hands: Modular Terminal…
Background: Assistance robots have the potential to increase the independence of people who need daily care due to limited mobility or being wheelchair-bound. Current solutions of attaching robotic arms to motorized wheelchairs offer…
To wield an object means to hold and move it in a way that exploits its functions. When humans wield tools -- such as writing with a pen or cutting with scissors -- our hands would reach very specific poses, often drastically different from…
Handheld kinesthetic haptic interfaces can provide greater mobility and richer tactile information as compared to traditional grounded devices. In this paper, we introduce a new handheld haptic interface which takes input using…
We automate soft robotic hand design iteration by co-optimizing design and control policy for dexterous manipulation skills in simulation. Our design iteration pipeline combines genetic algorithms and policy transfer to learn control…
Assistive machines endow people with limited mobility the opportunity to live more independently. However, operating these machines poses risks to the safety of the human operator as well as the surrounding environment. Thus, proper user…
Despite increasing dataset scale and model capacity, robot manipulation policies still struggle to generalize beyond their training distributions. As a result, deploying state-of-the-art policies in new environments, tasks, or robot…
Robotic minimally invasive interventions typically require using more than two instruments. We thus developed a foot pedal interface which allows the user to control a robotic arm (simultaneously to working with the hands) with four degrees…
Tactile sensing is a crucial perception mode for robots and human amputees in need of controlling a prosthetic device. Today robotic and prosthetic systems are still missing the important feature of accurate tactile sensing. This lack is…
Humanoid robots hold great promise for operating in human-centric environments, yet achieving robust whole-body coordination across the head, hands, and legs remains a major challenge. We present a system that combines a modular…
Fully wearable hand rehabilitation and assistive devices could extend training and improve quality of life for patients affected by hand impairments. However, such devices must deliver meaningful manipulation capabilities in a small and…
Although there has been recent progress in control of multi-joint prosthetic legs for rhythmic tasks such as walking, control of these systems for non-rhythmic motions and general real-world maneuvers is still an open problem. In this…
The increasing presence of robots alongside humans, such as in human-robot teams in manufacturing, gives rise to research questions about the kind of behaviors people prefer in their robot counterparts. We term actions that support…
Adapting upper-limb impedance (i.e., stiffness, damping, inertia) is essential for humans interacting with dynamic environments for executing grasping or manipulation tasks. On the other hand, control methods designed for state-of-the-art…
The increasing demand for healthcare workers, driven by aging populations and labor shortages, presents a significant challenge for hospitals. Humanoid robots have the potential to alleviate these pressures by leveraging their human-like…
We introduce CRAFT hand, a tendon-driven anthropomorphic hand with hybrid hard-soft compliance for contact-rich manipulation. The design is based on a simple idea: contact is not uniform across the hand. Impacts concentrate at joints, while…
Dexterous hands enable concurrent prehensile and nonprehensile manipulation, such as holding one object while interacting with another, a capability essential for everyday tasks yet underexplored in robotics. Learning such long-horizon,…
Natural muscles provide mobility in response to nerve impulses. Electromyography (EMG) measures the electrical activity of muscles in response to a nerve's stimulation. In the past few decades, EMG signals have been used extensively in the…
Assistive robotic devices can be used to help people with upper body disabilities gaining more autonomy in their daily life. Although basic motions such as positioning and orienting an assistive robot gripper in space allow performance of…
Human teams are able to easily perform collaborative manipulation tasks. However, for a robot and human to simultaneously manipulate an extended object is a difficult task using existing methods from the literature. Our approach in this…
Human grasps can be roughly categorized into two types: power grasps and precision grasps. Precision grasping enables tool use and is believed to have influenced human evolution. Today's multi-fingered robotic hands are effective in power…