Towards Haptic-Based Dual-Arm Manipulation

Abstract

Vision is the main component of current robotics systems that is used for manipulating objects. However, solely relying on vision for hand−object pose tracking faces challenges such as occlusions and objects moving out of view during robotic manipulation. In this work, we show that object kinematics can be inferred from local haptic feedback at the robot−object contact points, combined with robot kinematics information given an initial vision estimate of the object pose. A planar, dual-arm, teleoperated robotic setup was built to manipulate an object with hands shaped like circular discs. The robot hands were built with rubber cladding to allow for rolling contact without slipping. During stable grasping by the dual arm robot, under quasi-static conditions, the surface of the robot hand and object at the contact interface is defined by local geometric constraints. This allows one to define a relation between object orientation and robot hand orientation. With rolling contact, the displacement of the contact point on the object surface and the hand surface must be equal and opposite. This information, coupled with robot kinematics, allows one to compute the displacement of the object from its initial location. The mathematical formulation of the geometric constraints between robot hand and object is detailed. This is followed by the methodology in acquiring data from experiments to compute object kinematics. The sensors used in the experiments, along with calibration procedures, are presented before computing the object kinematics from recorded haptic feedback. Results comparing object kinematics obtained purely from vision and from haptics are presented to validate our method, along with the future ideas for perception via haptic manipulation.

A Path Planning Method with a Bidirectional Potential Field Probabilistic Step Size RRT for a Dual Manipulator

“…Equation (2) shows the main manipulator homogeneous coordinate transformation matrix. Table 2 presents the DH parameters of the main manipulator; the mirror image of the main and slave manipulators is symmetrical and α and θ are opposite to each other, where D = 1 m, d 3 = 0.1500 m, d 4 = 0.4318 m, a 2 = 0.4318 m, and a 3 = 0.0203 m. The DH parameters of a rigid link depend on the link parameters of the member (i.e., a i and α i ) and the joint parameters of the adjacent links (i.e., d i and θ i ).…”

“…Path planning can be flexibly adjusted and optimized according to different task characteristics, thereby improving the motion accuracy and speed of the manipulator, which directly affects production efficiency and quality. Compared with a single manipulator, the form of a dual manipulator collaborative operation can meet the needs of complex, intelligent, and compliant modern industrial systems, and dual manipulators have more advantages in efficiency and performance [2,3] and are gradually gaining attention in the industry. Path planning for dual manipulators is an important work of collaborative operations [4].…”

Omnidirectional Continuous Movement Method of Dual-Arm Robot in a Space Station

“…The motion planning for the leader manipulator is completed first, and the motion trajectory of the follower manipulator is deduced through constraints [26][27][28]. By integrating perceptual information, such as vision [29,30] and haptic feedback [31], and intelligent algorithms, such as reinforcement learning [32], the motion planning of the manipulators can be achieved, especially in replicating the movement characteristics of human arms [33,34]. Due to the complexity of the space station's internal environment, obstacle avoidance in motion planning has emerged as a focal point of research in this field [35].…”