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Artistic effects of Chinese character deformation have been attracting more and more attention, especially in the fields of films, TV programs and games. In this paper, we introduce a fast and effective Chinese character deformation method based on smoke simulation. During the smoke simulation, an external force field is generated according to current state frame by frame and this force field controls...
Distributed teams of agents can provide robust solutions to many problems of interest, and allowing a human to influence and manage those agents can extend the range of problems that can be solved while improving the team's efficiency. Within this context, it is interesting to develop methods for interaction that are intuitive and that utilize haptic interaction so that the human manager need not...
This paper presents a general grasp synthesis algorithm. The algorithm follows a stochastic approach that calculate a large number of grasps with good quality in short amount of time. It takes as an input a 3D point cloud that represents the contact points of the object and heuristically selects concurrent points which are covered by contact points and identifies concurrent grasps from such contact...
This paper proposes a novel Cosserat rod model based method to estimate contact forces based on the shape analysis of the catheter. We simplify the original Cosserat rod model to achieve real-time estimation of the force magnitude and directions applied to the catheter tip. The simplified model contains a set of arithmetic equations, which can be rapidly solved using an iterative optimization algorithm...
A collective actuator is a self-reconfigurable modular-robotic structure which produces useful mechanical work through simultaneous reconfiguration of its constituent units. An actuator is additionally called scalable if its force-to-weight ratio does not depend on the number of its member modules. In this work, we consider scalable collective actuators built from spherical catoms with two connection...
This paper describes a vacuum gripper that imitates the sucker of the octopus which is useful for the handling of industrial parts. It is difficult to use other sucker type vacuum grippers, but this gripper can adhere to rigid materials since the sucker is flexible. In the present work, we evaluated the effect of a liquid membrane on vacuum suction, since the industrial part often has a liquid membrane...
Quick motion and soft touch control are important for autonomous grasping. To perform a grasping action, a hand must adjust its fingertips to match the object shape. It is also necessary to reduce the fingertip velocity on contact with the object.We propose a method of fingertip velocity control for fast approach and slow contact using proximity sensors installed on fingertips. The proposed control...
Dexterous object manipulation with robotic hands (subject to holonomic constraints) usually requires the capacity of fingertips to roll onto the object, which is very difficult to achieve with frictionless point contact model . As an alternative, deformable contact model has been considered based on hemispherical shape end-effector to yield rolling. However, it entails dexterity at the expense of...
There are few mathematical indices to quantize the adaptability, although it is mentioned repeatedly as a highlight of underactuated mechanisms in literatures. This paper discusses the grasp adaptability of underactuated mechanisms. Different from compliance, namely the reciprocal of stiffness, the adaptability is presented as the ability of adaptive motion. Two measures of adaptability are proposed...
We propose an evaluation method of grasp stability which takes into account the elastic deformation of fingertips from the viewpoint of energy. An evaluation value of grasp stability is derived as the minimum energy which causes slippage of a fingertip on its contact surface. To formulate the evaluation value, the elastic potential energy of fingertips and the gravitational potential energy of a grasped...
Tactile sensing is of fundamental importance for object manipulation and perception. Several sensors for hands have been proposed in the literature, however, only a few of them can be fully integrated with robotic hands. Typical problems preventing integration include the need for deformable sensors that can be deployed on curved surfaces, and wiring complexity. In this paper we describe a fingertip...
Generally, wheel mechanisms are inferior to a tracked or walking mechanism in terms of step climbability or traversability in rough terrain; however, they are superior in terms of energy efficiency, structural simplicity, and carrying capacity. This paper proposes a new wheel mechanism, the swing-grouser wheel, which can climb high steps (especially in low friction environments) and has high energy...
This paper presents a novel nonlinear compliant link. It has two major properties: bi-directionality and stiffening compliance. Bi-directionality means it can be stretched and compressed, and is realized by antagonistic arrangement of an extension spring and a compression spring. Stiffening compliance means it becomes stiffer as it is stretched, and is realized by asymmetric geometry. The links are...
In this work, we examine several wing designs for a motor-driven, flapping-wing micro air vehicle capable of liftoff. The full system consists of two wings independently driven by geared pager motors that include a spring in parallel with the output shaft. The linear transmission allows for resonant operation, while control is achieved by direct drive of the wing angle. Wings used in previous work...
This work proposes an approach to manipulate unknown objects based on tactile information. The manipulation can have three goals: the optimization of the hand configuration, the optimization of the grasp quality and the optimization of the object configuration. Three different motion strategies are introduced in order to move the fingers trying to deal with each of the three goals. The strategies...
Optical motion capture systems, which are used in broad fields of research, are costly; they need large installation space and calibrations. Applying this technology in typical homes and care centers is unrealistic. Low cost motion capture systems such as Microsoft Kinect are based on video, thus privacy issues might arise from their usage. Therefore we propose to use low cost contact force measurement...
To realize the underwater intervention, a Father-son Underwater Intervention Robotic System (FUIRS) is proposed in our laboratory. The FUIRS employs a novel biomimetic microrobot to realize underwater manipulation tasks. The main work of this paper is to describe the biomimetic microrobot which is inspired by an octopus. The microrobot is mainly composed of body and arm. We use IPMC to fabricate the...
We have proposed and developed a new quadruped walking robot with a spherical shell, called “QRoSS”. QRoSS is a transformable robot that can store its legs in the spherical shell. The shell not only absorbs external forces from all directions, but also improves mobile performance because of its round shape. In rescue operations at a disaster site, carrying robots into a site is dangerous for operators...
Gecko's superb climbing ability to move unhamperedly across dirty, wet and rough surfaces stems from the non-wetting characteristics of gecko toes. Self-cleaning is crucial for dry adhesive to be reusable and practical, yet till now low-cost self-cleaning artificial dry adhesives are rarely reported and difficult to fabricate. Herein we proposed a novel low-cost superlyophobic dry adhesive film based...
We provide a new scheme of photonic pulling force in one-way waveguides. Objects of arbitrary shape and dielectric properties can be pulled all the way to the light source, regardless of waveguide geometry.
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