Soft Manipulation Surface With Reduced Actuator Density For Heterogeneous Object Manipulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a soft manipulation surface with fewer actuators that can handle fragile, heterogeneous objects efficiently, reducing complexity and cost in robotic manipulation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel soft surface with reduced actuator density for versatile object manipulation, especially suited for fragile and diverse objects.

Findings

Fewer actuators cover large manipulation areas effectively.

The approach handles objects smaller than actuator spacing.

Suitable for fragile objects in food industry applications.

Abstract

Object manipulation in robotics faces challenges due to diverse object shapes, sizes, and fragility. Gripper-based methods offer precision and low degrees of freedom (DOF) but the gripper limits the kind of objects to grasp. On the other hand, surface-based approaches provide flexibility for handling fragile and heterogeneous objects but require numerous actuators, increasing complexity. We propose new manipulation hardware that utilizes equally spaced linear actuators placed vertically and connected by a soft surface. In this setup, object manipulation occurs on the soft surface through coordinated movements of the surrounding actuators. This approach requires fewer actuators to cover a large manipulation area, offering a cost-effective solution with a lower DOF compared to dense actuator arrays. It also effectively handles heterogeneous objects of varying shapes and weights, even when they are significantly smaller than the distance between actuators. This method is particularly suitable for managing highly fragile objects in the food industry.