Giving robots a more nimble grasp
Engineers use the environment to give simple robotic grippers more dexterity.
Engineers at MIT have now hit upon a way to impart more dexterity to simple robotic grippers: using the environment as a helping hand. The team, led by Alberto Rodriguez, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and graduate student Nikhil Chavan-Dafle, has developed a model that predicts the force with which a robotic gripper needs to push against various fixtures in the environment in order to adjust its grasp on an object.
Featured Product
3D Vision: Ensenso B now also available as a mono version!
This compact 3D camera series combines a very short working distance, a large field of view and a high depth of field - perfect for bin picking applications. With its ability to capture multiple objects over a large area, it can help robots empty containers more efficiently. Now available from IDS Imaging Development Systems. In the color version of the Ensenso B, the stereo system is equipped with two RGB image sensors. This saves additional sensors and reduces installation space and hardware costs. Now, you can also choose your model to be equipped with two 5 MP mono sensors, achieving impressively high spatial precision. With enhanced sharpness and accuracy, you can tackle applications where absolute precision is essential. The great strength of the Ensenso B lies in the very precise detection of objects at close range. It offers a wide field of view and an impressively high depth of field. This means that the area in which an object is in focus is unusually large. At a distance of 30 centimetres between the camera and the object, the Z-accuracy is approx. 0.1 millimetres. The maximum working distance is 2 meters. This 3D camera series complies with protection class IP65/67 and is ideal for use in industrial environments.
