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Recent studies of insect visual behaviour and navigation reveal a number of elegant strategies that can be profitably applied to the design of autonomous robots. Bees, for example, negotiate narrow gaps by balancing the velocity of image motion in the two eyes, rather than using computationally complex stereo mechanisms to measure distance. Distance flown is gauged by integrating, over time, the optic...
We describe a framework and control algorithms for coordinating multiple mobile robots with manipulators focusing on tasks that require grasping, manipulation, and transporting large and possibly flexible objects without special purpose fixtures. Because each robot has an independent controller and is autonomous, the coordination and synergy are realized through sensing and communication. The robots...
This paper describes our experiments with a distributed manipulation system. We study a system in which multiple robots cooperate to move large objects such as furniture and boxes using a constrained prehensile manipulation mode, by wrapping ropes around them. The system consists of three manipulation skills: tieing ropes around objects, affecting translations using a flossing manipulation gait, and...
This paper describes our work on Desktop Robotics. The main focus is two robots that locomote and manipulate paper on a desktop. One robot uses wheels for both manipulation and locomotion. The other robot uses wheels for locomotion and a sticky foot to lift and carry pieces of paper. We outline the goals of our work on desktop robotics, describe the design of the robots built so far, present experimental...
This paper discusses grasping and manipulating multiple objects by an enveloping style. We formulate the motion constraint for enveloping multiple objects under rolling contacts. We further provide a sufficient condition for producing a relative motion between objects. We show that a three-fingered robot hand experimentally succeeds in lifting up two cylindrical objects from a table and in changing...
In November of 1998, an expedition from Carnegie Mellon University travelled to the Patriot Hills, Antarctica. The purpose of the expedition was to demonstrate autonomous navigation and robotic classification of meteorites and the characterization of various robotics technologies in a harsh, polar setting. This paper presents early results of experiments performed on this expedition with CCD cameras...
An application for teleoperated fire fighting shall be equipped with a sensor system which offers the operator the required data of the robot’s environment so that he is able to guide and control it safely. The environmental perception is based on a sensor for two-dimensional pictures and a sensor for the measurement of the one-dimensional depth. In several live tests a number of sensors were investigated...
Object recognition, visual robot guidance, and several other vision applications require models of objects or scenes. Computer vision has a tradition of building these models from inherent object characteristics. The problem is that such characteristics are difficult to extract. Recently, a pure view-based object recognition approach was proposed, that is surprisingly performant. It is based on a...
A navigation scheme for a mobile robot is presented, where a set of linguistic instructions are formulated to command the robot to move toward destination in a corridor environment. This approach do not need a detailed model of the environment. The robot is equipped with ultra-wide-angle laser range sensor. Fundamental functions based on the surroundings information obtained from the laser range sensor:...
This paper concerns eye-in-hand robotic applications that involve large relative displacements between the camera and the target object. A major concern for this type of task is to achieve simultaneously two different objectives. Firstly, the robot has to reach its desired final location relative to the target. Secondly, it must be guaranteed that the target stays in the camera’s field of view during...
This text gives experimental results, comments and interpretations of a set of compliant motion tasks that form the basis for force-guided identification of the geometry of the most common contact situations. The experiments show the influence of (i) nonideal effects, (ii) nonlinearities, and (iii) different motion trajectories.
Distributed impedance is an efficient approach for controlling any kind of cooperating manipulation system. It combines the advantages of decentralized control solutions and the robustness of impedance control with force feedback. Distributed impedance was implemented on a dualarm system composed of two industrial manipulators. Experimental results were obtained for free and constrained manipulation...
This paper concerns force control and contour following over viscoelastic surfaces such as the case with FRP molding. Successful FRP molding requires that a bounded force be applied to the surface and that the pressing of the FRP results in an even surface thickness. To accomplish this task using a robot, we analyze the visco-elastic properties of FRP. The surface is expressed as a continuous model...
In this paper, we present a control algorithm for a nonholonomic mobile manipulator built from a n joints robot manipulator mounted on a nonholonomic mobile platform. We want the manipulator end-effector location (position and orientation) to evolve between starting and final required locations and to follow a required trajectory (defined as a function of the time). We describe a global control which...
Autonomous calibration techniques are applied to the calibration of two sensors of a planar robot: a platen sensor and a coordination sensor. The redundant angle measurements of the platen sensor are used to identify its parameters, improving its output accuracy by better than a factor of two. Redundant position measurements using both sensors are also used in an attempt to further improve the platen...
We present a composite forward model of the mechanics of an excavator backhoe digging in soil. This model is used to predict the trajectories developed by a closed-loop force based control scheme given initial conditions, some of which can be controlled (excavator control parameters), some directly measured (shape of the terrain), and some estimated (soil properties). Since soil conditions can vary...
This paper presents the architecture and the implementation of a robot controller for a Delta-3 manipulator used for the implantation of bone fixtures for Anaplastology. The main feature of this robotics system for maxillofacial surgery is its interactive tool handling in conjunction with an image based control. The controller allows the use of the system as an intelligent tool which carries the drilling...
We discuss our experiences in automating a very large mining machine, an electric walking dragline. Initially this appeared to be a very simple robotics problem and that it was “just a matter of scaling up” in terms of machine size. In actuality the robotics part of the problem was the easiest to solve. The more difficult problems were to do with issues like machine environment (dust, rain, insects),...
Smooth slopes can be displayed on treadmills through tilt mechanisms, but these mechanisms are typically too slow to present sudden slope changes. The Sarcos Treadport utilizes a mechanical tether that can apply horizontal forces to the user to simulate gravity forces. Psychophysical results are presented to show that slope display via tether forces is a reasonable facsimile for treadmill slope. Results...
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