RoboCAP: Robotic Classification and Precision Pouring of Diverse Liquids and Granular Media with Capacitive Sensing

TL;DR

This paper presents RoboCAP, a robotic system with capacitive sensing integrated into a gripper, enabling precise sensing and pouring of diverse liquids and granular media, including opaque containers, with high accuracy.

Contribution

Introduction of RoboCAP, a novel capacitive sensing gripper that allows robots to sense and manipulate liquids and granular media with high precision, including in visually opaque scenarios.

Findings

Achieved state-of-the-art pouring accuracy across various substances.

Enabled sensing of material properties and dynamics inside opaque containers.

Demonstrated robust manipulation of liquids and granular media.

Abstract

Liquids and granular media are pervasive throughout human environments, yet remain particularly challenging for robots to sense and manipulate precisely. In this work, we present a systematic approach at integrating capacitive sensing within robotic end effectors to enable robust sensing and precise manipulation of liquids and granular media. We introduce the parallel-jaw RoboCAP Gripper with embedded capacitive sensing arrays that enable a robot to directly sense the materials and dynamics of liquids inside of diverse containers, including some visually opaque. When coupled with model-based control, we demonstrate that the proposed system enables a robotic manipulator to achieve state-of-the-art precision pouring accuracy for a range of substances with varying dynamics properties. Code, designs, and build details are available on the project website.