Related papers: Strong, Accurate, and Low-Cost Robot Manipulator
The increasing use of drones in human-centric applications highlights the need for designs that can survive collisions and recover rapidly, minimizing risks to both humans and the environment. We present HoLoArm, a quadrotor with compliant…
Assistive robots offer agency to humans with severe motor impairments. Often, these users control high-DoF robots through low-dimensional interfaces, such as using a 1-D sip-and-puff interface to operate a 6-DoF robotic arm. This mismatch…
Soft robots have the potential to revolutionize the use of robotic systems with their capability of establishing safe, robust, and adaptable interactions with their environment, but their precise control remains challenging. In contrast,…
It is challenging to grasp numerous objects with varying sizes and shapes with a single robot hand. To address this, we propose a new robot hand called the 'F3 hand' inspired by the complex movements of human index finger and thumb. The F3…
The use of standard platforms in the field of humanoid robotics can accelerate research, and lower the entry barrier for new research groups. While many affordable humanoid standard platforms exist in the lower size ranges of up to 60cm,…
This paper introduces the BRL/Pisa/IIT (BPI) SoftHand: a single actuator-driven, low-cost, 3D-printed, tendon-driven, underactuated robot hand that can be used to perform a range of grasping tasks. Based on the adaptive synergies of the…
Despite advances in localization and navigation, aerial robots inevitably remain susceptible to accidents and collisions. In this work, we propose a passive foldable airframe as a protective mechanism for a small aerial robot. A foldable…
Tendon-driven underactuated hands excel in adaptive grasping but often suffer from kinematic unpredictability and highly non-linear force transmission. This ambiguity limits their ability to perform precise free-motion shaping and deliver…
With recent advancements in industrial robots, educating students in new technologies and preparing them for the future is imperative. However, access to industrial robots for teaching poses challenges, such as the high cost of acquiring…
3D perceptual representations are well suited for robot manipulation as they easily encode occlusions and simplify spatial reasoning. Many manipulation tasks require high spatial precision in end-effector pose prediction, which typically…
Unlike the rigid, high-volume automation found in industry, academic research requires process flexibility that has historically relied on variable manual operations. This hinders the fabrication of advanced, complex devices. We propose to…
Lego is a well-known platform for prototyping pixelized objects. However, robotic Lego prototyping (i.e., manipulating Lego bricks) is challenging due to the tight connections and accuracy requirements. This paper investigates safe and…
Most traditional robotic mechanisms feature inelastic joints that are unable to robustly handle large deformations and off-axis moments. As a result, the applied loads are transferred rigidly throughout the entire structure. The…
Force and proximity sensors are key in robotics, especially when applied in collaborative robots that interact physically or cognitively with humans in real unstructured environments. However, most existing sensors for use in robotics are…
We describe a force-controlled robotic gripper with built-in tactile and 3D perception. We also describe a complete autonomous manipulation pipeline consisting of object detection, segmentation, point cloud processing, force-controlled…
With academic and commercial interest for humanoid robots peaking, multiple platforms are being developed. Through a high level of customization, they showcase impressive performance. Most of these systems remain closed-source or have high…
A force balanced manipulator design based on the closed chain planar five bar linkage is developed and experimentally validated. We present 2 variants as a modular design: Forbal-2, a planar 2-DOF manipulator, and its extension to 5-DOF…
Many have explored the application of continuum robot manipulators for minimally invasive surgery, and have successfully demonstrated the advantages their flexible design provides -- with some solutions having reached commercialisation and…
Humans can teleoperate robots to accomplish complex manipulation tasks. Imitation learning has emerged as a powerful framework that leverages human teleoperated demonstrations to teach robots new skills. However, the performance of the…
Many everyday robot manipulation skills are affordance-dependent, with success determined by whether the robot contacts the functional object region required by the subsequent action. Current simulation data generators obtain contacts from…