One variation of a method for manipulating a multi-link robotic arm includes: accessing a virtual model of the target object; extracting an object feature representing the target object from the virtual model; at the robotic arm, scanning a field of view of an optical sensor for the object feature, the optical sensor arranged on a distal end of the robotic arm proximal an end effector; in response to detecting the object feature in the field of view of the optical sensor, calculating a physical offset between the target object and the end effector based on a position of the object feature in the field of view of the optical sensor and a known offset between the optical sensor and the end effector; and driving a set of actuators in the robotic arm to reduce the physical offset.

An apparatus including a combination possibility calculation unit to calculate a stable orientation in which, from three-dimensional shape data of a part, the part is stabilized on a flat surface, to calculate a grasping method for grasping the part with a hand, and to calculate a combination in which the hand does not interfere from system configuration data including information on a connection destination of the hand and a combination group of the grasping method and the stable orientation; a regrasping path calculation unit to calculate a regrasping path of the part by using the calculated combination; a path group calculation unit to calculate a path having the minimum number of teaching points from the regrasping path as a path group based on orientation data for designating an input orientation and an alignment orientation of the part; and a program generation unit to generate a program of a robot based on the path group.

An apparatus including a combination possibility calculation unit to calculate a stable orientation in which, from three-dimensional shape data of a part, the part is stabilized on a flat surface, to calculate a grasping method for grasping the part with a hand, and to calculate a combination in which the hand does not interfere from system configuration data including information on a connection destination of the hand and a combination group of the grasping method and the stable orientation; a regrasping path calculation unit to calculate a regrasping path of the part by using the calculated combination; a path group calculation unit to calculate a path having the minimum number of teaching points from the regrasping path as a path group based on orientation data for designating an input orientation and an alignment orientation of the part; and a program generation unit to generate a program of a robot based on the path group.

An overhead transport vehicle system includes an overhead transport vehicle to convey an object, and a teaching unit to teach transfer of the object by the overhead transport vehicle to a load port on which the object is to be placed. The teaching unit includes a body including a detector to be brought into contact with a positioning pin on the load port to detect a position of the positioning pin, and a flange movable up and down with respect to the body and to be held by a holder to be raised and lowered by an elevator of the overhead transport vehicle.

An overhead transport vehicle system includes an overhead transport vehicle to convey an object, and a teaching unit to teach transfer of the object by the overhead transport vehicle to a load port on which the object is to be placed. The teaching unit includes a body including a detector to be brought into contact with a positioning pin on the load port to detect a position of the positioning pin, and a flange movable up and down with respect to the body and to be held by a holder to be raised and lowered by an elevator of the overhead transport vehicle.

Provided are an apparatus and method for controlling a robot. The apparatus includes an active force detector configured to detect an active force, to which a natural force caused by a physical interaction between a user and a robot and not reflecting an operation intention of the user is applied, applied by the user to the robot operating through the physical interaction with the user, a compensator configured to determine a compensation force for actively compensating for the natural force applied to the active force by using a method of optimizing an internal parameter of a predefined dynamics model, and a controller configured to determine an operation instruction for controlling an operation of the robot from a result obtained by applying the compensation force determined by the compensator to the active force detected by the active force detector and operate the robot.

Techniques are described herein for generating a dynamical systems control policy. A non-parametric family of smooth maps is defined on which vector-field learning problems can be formulated and solved using convex optimization In some implementations, techniques described herein address the problem of generating contracting vector fields for certifying stability of the dynamical systems arising in robotics applications, e.g., designing stable movement primitives. These learning problems may utilize a set of demonstration trajectories, one or more desired equilibria (e.g., a target point), and once or more statistics including at least an average velocity and average duration of the set of demonstration trajectories. The learned contracting vector fields may induce a contraction tube around a targeted trajectory for an end effector of the robot. In some implementations, the disclosed framework may use curl-free vector-valued Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces.

Techniques are described herein for generating a dynamical systems control policy. A non-parametric family of smooth maps is defined on which vector-field learning problems can be formulated and solved using convex optimization In some implementations, techniques described herein address the problem of generating contracting vector fields for certifying stability of the dynamical systems arising in robotics applications, e.g., designing stable movement primitives. These learning problems may utilize a set of demonstration trajectories, one or more desired equilibria (e.g., a target point), and once or more statistics including at least an average velocity and average duration of the set of demonstration trajectories. The learned contracting vector fields may induce a contraction tube around a targeted trajectory for an end effector of the robot. In some implementations, the disclosed framework may use curl-free vector-valued Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces.

A method of teaching a robot capable of maintaining constant a direction in which an end faces and including N joints (N is a natural number) according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes: obtaining a reference direction in which the end is to face; calculating angles of M joints (M is a natural number, and N>M) from among the N joints to correspond to teaching of a user with respect to the robot; and calculating angles of remaining joints so that the end faces in the reference direction, based on the angles of the M joints. In this case, the remaining joints may be joints other than the M joints from among the N joints.

A method of teaching a robot capable of maintaining constant a direction in which an end faces and including N joints (N is a natural number) according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes: obtaining a reference direction in which the end is to face; calculating angles of M joints (M is a natural number, and N>M) from among the N joints to correspond to teaching of a user with respect to the robot; and calculating angles of remaining joints so that the end faces in the reference direction, based on the angles of the M joints. In this case, the remaining joints may be joints other than the M joints from among the N joints.