Punyo-1：大型物体操作と人との物理的インタラクションのための柔らかい触覚センシング上半身ロボット
Punyo-1: Soft tactile-sensing upper-body robot for large object manipulation and physical human interaction
既製の硬いロボットアームに柔らかい触覚センシングモジュール（耐切断カバー、Soft-bubbleセンサの手先、胸部の力/形状センサ）を組み合わせ、全身での接触を活かした大型物体の把持・操作を実現した上半身ヒューマノイドロボット。
著者: Aimee Goncalves, Naveen Kuppuswamy, Andrew Beaulieu, Avinash Uttamchandani, Katherine M. Tsui, Alex Alspach
分類: cs.RO
原文アブストラクト
The manipulation of large objects and safe operation in the vicinity of humans are key capabilities of a general purpose domestic robotic assistant. We present the design of a soft, tactile-sensing humanoid upper-body robot and demonstrate whole-body rich-contact manipulation strategies for handling large objects. We demonstrate our hardware design philosophy for outfitting off-the-shelf hard robot arms and other components with soft tactile-sensing modules, including: (i) low-cost, cut-resistant, contact pressure localizing coverings for the arms, (ii) paws based on TRI's Soft-bubble sensors for the end effectors, and (iii) compliant force/geometry sensors for the coarse geometry sensing chest. We leverage the mechanical intelligence and tactile sensing of these modules to develop and demonstrate motion primitives for whole-body grasping. We evaluate the hardware's effectiveness in achieving grasps of varying strengths over a variety of large domestic objects. Our results demonstrate the importance of exploiting softness and tactile sensing in contact-rich manipulation strategies, as well as a path forward for whole-body force-controlled interactions with the world. (The supplemental video is available publicly at https://youtu.be/G8ZYgPRV5LY).
