Educational manipulation robot

Teaching a Robot Manipulation

An automated software system has been developed to allow robots to learn a generalized motor skill from demonstrations given by a human operator. Data is captured using a teleoperation suit as a task is performed repeatedly on Leonardo, the Robotic Life group's anthropomorphic robot, in different parts of his workspace. Stereo vision and tactile feedback data are also captured. Joint and end ef...

Task Frames in Robot Manipulation

Most robotics computations refer to a single worldbased frame of reference; however, several advantages accrue with the introduction of a second frame, termed a task frame. A task frame is a coordinate frame that can be attached to different objects that are to be manipulated. The task frame is related to the world-based coordinate frame by a simple geometric transformation. The virtues of such...

Active Learning for Robot Manipulation

Learning techniques in robotic grasping applications have usually been concerned with the way a hand approaches to an object, or with improving the motor control of manipulation actions. We present an active learning approach devised to face the problem of visually-guided grasp selection. We want to choose the best hand configuration for grasping a particular object using only visual informatio...

Robot Manipulation of Deformable Objects

Robot manipulation in human environments

Human environments present special challenges for robot manipulation. They are often dynamic, difficult to predict, and beyond the control of a robot engineer. Fortunately, many characteristics of these settings can be used to a robot’s advantage. Human environments are typically populated by people, and a robot can rely on the guidance and assistance of a human collaborator. Everyday objects e...