Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 15.05
January 23, 2023
…and robustness of robot assembly, even when using vision, tactile, or force sensors,” they wrote. “A finray-effect gripper is adapted to realize structured (i.e. directional) stiffness that allows high-speed mechanical search, self-alignment in insertion, and sufficient assembly force. The design of the finray ribs and fingertips are investigated, with a final design allowing plug insertion with a tolerance window of up to 7.5 mm at high speed.” The Germany-based researchers investigated adjustable compliance and custom-designed robotic fingertips to achieve more reliable gripping. They said they plan to focus future work on “determining the mechanical attributes regarding the stiffness, maximum tolerable…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 21.12
October 11, 2022
…its RoboSkin product line, which is designed to provide tactile awareness for humanoid robots and prosthetics. BeBop said millions of its fabric sensors are already in daily use in research, corporate, and military facilities worldwide. “We started shipping RoboSkin to evaluation customers two years ago,” recalled Keith McMillen, founder and chief technology officer of BeBop Sensors. “We got good feedback and decided to give it better spatial resolution than human skin and significantly better force recognition.” How to identify superhuman sensing What is “better-than-human spatial resolution,” and how can that help robots? “Physiologists have experimented and touched a person with…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 16.46
September 15, 2022
…would, said the company. More than 130 points of tactile feedback per hand enable natural interaction and true-contact haptics, it added. The proceeds from this round fund commercialization of next-generation products building on the success of HaptX's award-winning HaptX Gloves DK2, said the company. Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world have adopted HaptX Gloves for the most demanding applications in training and simulation, industrial design, and robotics. Investors support robotic sense of touch AIS Global and Crescent Cove Advisors led HaptX's funding round, with participation from Verizon Ventures, Mason Avenue Investments, and Taylor Frigon Capital Partners. Centerview Partners…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 19.56
September 03, 2022
…(face detection, face recognition, object detection, and recognition), and tactile sensing, among other capabilities. Industry 4.0 Students learn about warehouse automation, sorting and stacking, visual sensing, assembly lines, process automation, and optimization. Space Exploration / Robotics This program uses a wide range of engineering concepts, mechanical and electrical assemblies, mechatronics, electronics, and locomotion of the rover. Autonomous AI Agent Station Students learn about multi-agent systems, ad hoc autonomous agent teams and machine learning. The new robotics lab was unveiled last month. Source: RobotLAB Lab to be used as part of new robotics program Saint Leo University claims to be one…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 13.57
August 16, 2022
…in delicate creative tasks that require high levels of tactile dexterity. This paradox has led many roboticists to take a dramatically different approach to using mechatronics to streamline productivity. In place of traditional robots to augment labor, these innovators outfit workers with cyborg appendages to increase employee productivity. One example of this approach is German Bionic's Cray X exoskeleton. German Bionic provides power to workers Rather than replacing employees with robots, customers of German Bionic can elevate their current workforces to new strengths and purposes. I recently spoke with Armin Schmidt, German Bionic’s CEO and founder. He elaborated on his…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 41.74
June 28, 2022
…explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD. STARFISH stands for “Strong Tactile mARitime hand for Feeling, Inspecting, Sensing and Handling.” Pittsburgh-based RE2, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corp., said it has successfully assembled and lab-tested a complete gripper capable of grasping and holding a variety of objects. The end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) project is funded through the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR). “STARFISH uses advanced touch sensors and next-generation haptic feedback to provide robot operators with the last link in terms of robotic perception capabilities—the ability to ‘feel’ objects in the environment,” said Dr. Adam Brant, project…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 16.52
June 13, 2022
…this end, cutting-edge control methods equip the robot with tactile perception and enable it to adapt to ambient conditions.” Researchers needed to ensure that the robot did not damage crops or pull their roots out of the soil. It also needed to meet or exceed the efficiency of humans, who can pick as many as 13 cucumbers per minute. Fraunhofer Institute has developed a dual-armed, cucumber-harvesting robot. Source: igus Robolink proves effective For this application, engineers used an articulated robot arm with up to five degrees of freedom. Called robolink, the product from igus reaches out to 790 mm (31.1…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 28.61
May 13, 2022
…line of skin-like coverings, which include sensors to provide tactile awareness for humanoid robots and prosthetics. At less than 1 mm thick, RoboSkin fits robotic fingers, limbs, feet, heads, or torsos, to make robots “feel” better, said BeBop Sensors. RoboSkin’s advanced fabric-based sensor skin can be shaped to any surface, allowing quick tailoring to fit any robot, claimed the Berkeley, Calif.-based company. BeBob said its spatial resolution and sensitivity exceeds human abilities for collaborative applications. “I have been working with roboticists refining our RoboSkin for 10 years,” said Keith McMillen, founder and chief technology officer of BeBop Sensors. “We are…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 25.24
March 06, 2022
…Samantha Johnson, named the system “TATUM,” which stands for “Tactile ASL Translational User Mechanism.” The genesis of the robot began when Johnson took a course in American Sign Language (ASL) in her second year at Northeastern. The course put her in touch with people at the Deaf-Blind Contact Center in Allston, Mass., where she was able to practice signing with the participants in the center. “When I was watching the interpreter sign, I asked, ‘How do you communicate without the interpreter?' and the answer was simply, 'We don’t,’” Johnson recalled. She set out to develop a robot interpreter. An inflatable…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 13.76
February 23, 2022
…The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company claimed that its software, tactile sensors, haptic intelligence platform, and end-of-arm tooling and food-grade grippers can help transform labor-intensive facilities into “lights-out factories of the future.” RIOS workcells pioneer RaaS RIOS said that it “focuses on the last frontier of automation in factories, in which traditional automation breaks down.” It said its systems are designed to have the dexterity, cognitive skills, and autonomy to tackle hard-to-automate picking and sorting tasks in unstructured environments. The company added that it pioneered the robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) business model, which enables customers to avoid upfront capital commitments in favor of…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 17.00
January 28, 2022
…allow a novice programmer to approach expert-level programming. Visual Tactile Robotic Surface Inspections Lead: Siemens Partners: GelSight Inc., Carnegie Mellon University, ATI Specialty Alloys and Components, Boeing Description: This project will develop a robotic vision and visual tactile inspection system that automates high-resolution surface defect inspections of spacecraft components and commercial airplane fuselages. These technological improvements could improve the quality of aerospace inspections as well as replace manual operations, said the ARM Institute. The inspection system could also improve the reliability, maintainability, and readiness of aviation assets and ultimately to reduce the lifecycle costs of the fleet. AI and robotics…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 25.81
November 08, 2021
…said Hussein. “Companies have approached us after trying other tactile sensors on the market,” he said. “Other players such as SynTouch offer impressive capabilities, but their construction is complex and very rigid. Because their sensors are very expensive, they can do sensing only on the edge of the fingertip. To do sensing all over the hand, we can use biotactile sensors.” Touchlab goes for more modalities How close are Touchlab's thin eDermis sensors to human senses? “Lots of sensor companies look at the problem in a primitive way,” said Vasileios Mitrakos, senior electronic skin engineer at Touchlab. “Most sensors on…
