3D Gripping Features for Versatile Robotic Pick-and-Place
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robots lack sensitivity and fine touch in handling physical objects, particularly when dealing with objects of disparate shapes, sizes, and orientations, limiting their effectiveness in pick and place operations across various industries.
Innovation Solution
A robotic manipulation system equipped with a robotic arm, optics system, and actuators that can selectively grip three-dimensional gripping features, allowing for precise alignment and grasping of objects with identical or differently configured features, enabling the handling of objects with varying shapes and sizes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional robotic grippers are used for pick and place operations, then the robot can handle objects efficiently, but the robot lacks sensitivity and fine touch when handling objects of disparate shapes, sizes, and orientations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by designing a standardized three-dimensional gripping feature that can be integrated into multiple different physical objects regardless of their shape, size, or orientation. This single gripping feature design serves multiple functions across diverse object types, allowing the same robotic end effector to reliably manipulate various objects without requiring object-specific adapters or complex sensing systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs parameter changes by modifying the physical objects to include a standardized three-dimensional gripping feature with specific geometric parameters (cavity shape, size, orientation). This parameter standardization transforms diverse objects into a unified format that robotic systems can reliably grasp, changing the objects' graspable parameters while maintaining their functional diversity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the robot is designed to handle objects of different shapes and sizes, then the robot's versatility improves, but the complexity of the robotic system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the extraction principle by removing the need for complex robotic sensing, perception, and decision-making systems. Instead of making the robot complex to handle diverse objects, the solution extracts the variability from the objects themselves by standardizing their gripping features, thereby simplifying the robotic system to a basic grasp-and-move operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent inverts the traditional approach by not adapting the robot to handle different objects, but rather adapting the objects to fit a standardized robotic interface. This inversion simplifies the robotic system while maintaining versatility, as the same end effector can manipulate any object with the standardized three-dimensional gripping feature.
3Productivity
If traditional pick and place operations are performed without standardized gripping features, then the process is simple for regular objects, but sensitivity and precision are reduced when handling objects with varying characteristics
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-integrating the three-dimensional gripping feature into the physical objects during manufacturing. This preliminary preparation ensures that when the robotic system encounters these objects, the gripping features are already in known, precise locations, eliminating the need for complex real-time detection and localization operations during pick and place tasks.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, and associated components for robotic manipulation of physical objects. The physical objects include three-dimensional gripping features configured to be detected by an optics system and gripped by an end-effector of a robotic arm with sufficient gripping force to move the physical objects against the force of gravity. Sets of the physical objects can have different sizes and shapes and, in some examples, include identically constructed three-dimensional gripping features.