Adaptive Robot Hand Gripping Control for Soft Articles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional robot hands struggle to efficiently pick and handle soft, varying-shaped articles like cream puffs, bread, or cakes without deformation or breakage, as they lack adaptive gripping mechanisms responsive to the articles' size and shape variations.
Innovation Solution
A robot controller system that acquires size information using a visual sensor and adjusts the gripping distance or force of multiple gripping portions in response to the detected size information, employing a learning unit to improve gripping performance over time, and communicates with a host computer system to accumulate and distribute learning results.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional robot hands with fixed gripping portions are used, then the structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but the robot cannot adapt to articles with varying sizes and shapes, leading to deformation or breakage of soft articles
Solution Approach 1:
The gripping portions are designed to be movable relative to each other, allowing dynamic adjustment of the gripping distance based on the size and shape of the article being gripped. This enables the robot hand to adapt to various article dimensions while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The gripping distance between gripping portions is changed as a variable parameter based on the detected article characteristics. By adjusting this parameter dynamically, the system achieves adaptability to different article sizes and shapes without requiring complex reconfiguration mechanisms.
2Reliability
If the gripping force is increased to ensure secure gripping, then the reliability of gripping is improved, but soft articles are deformed or broken
Solution Approach 1:
The gripping force is adjusted as a controllable parameter based on the detected article characteristics. For soft articles, the gripping force is reduced to prevent deformation, while for harder articles, the gripping force can be increased to ensure secure gripping, thus achieving reliable gripping without causing harm.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses visual sensor detection of article characteristics as feedback to dynamically adjust the gripping force. This closed-loop control ensures that the gripping force is optimized for each specific article, preventing deformation while maintaining secure gripping.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the gripping distance is fixed, then the device complexity is reduced, but the robot hand cannot accommodate articles of different sizes
Solution Approach 1:
The gripping portions are designed with movable capability, allowing the gripping distance to be dynamically adjusted based on article size. This dynamic adjustment mechanism maintains relatively simple device architecture while achieving adaptability to different article dimensions.
Data Source
AI summary
A robot controller is a controller which controls, via a hand control device, a robot hand that grips an article with two or more gripping portions. The robot controller includes, a size information acquisition unit which acquires size information about the article based on an image obtained by a visual sensor for detecting the article, and a gripping adjustment unit which changes, in response to the size information, a gripping distance, which is the space between the gripping portions, in a gripping state or a gripping force of the gripping portions in the gripping state.