A mechanical arm designed to provide automated garbage collection with smooth, constant movement (i.e. movement that has minimal jerk/shock) thereby resulting in limited shock stress on the components and leading to high durability. The mechanical arm including a horizontal displacement system having a plurality of sections rollingly engaged to one another and a motor mounted to an immobile section for drivingly extending section in a generally horizontal orientation, a vertical displacement system having a plurality of masts rollingly engaged to one another and a motor mounted to a first mast for drivingly extending a second mast in a generally vertical orientation, and/or a grabber system having a plurality of fingers mounted to a frame and operated by a single motor.

Provided are a container storage system, a warehousing system, a robot control method, and a robot; the container storage system comprises an inventory area, a control server, a robot, and a plurality of workstations; the control server communicates with the robot wirelessly; an inventory rack is placed in the inventory area; the inventory rack comprises at least one layer of layered panels; the at least one layer of layered panels divides the inventory rack into at least two layers; at least two storage containers are placed on the inventory rack in the direction of the depth of the layered panels, and the direction of width of the storage container on the inventory rack is consistent with the direction of the depth of the layered panels. The system increases the storage density of storage containers in the inventory area, and reduces the energy consumption of the robot picking the storage containers.

A task hierarchical control method as well as a robot and a storage medium using the same are provided. The method includes: obtaining a task instruction for a robot, where the task instruction is for determining a target task card including an amount of selection matrices for dividing a target task into the amount of hierarchical subtasks and a controller name for executing each of the hierarchical subtasks; obtaining a null space projection matrix of each of the hierarchical subtasks based on the corresponding selection matrix; generating control finks of the amount according to the corresponding controller of each of the hierarchical subtasks and the corresponding null space projection matrix; calculating a control torque of each of the control links and obtaining a hierarchical control output quantity by adding ail the control torques; and controlling the robot to perform the target task using the hierarchical control output quantity.

A semi-automatic precision positioning robot apparatus and method for use of the same to hold, position, orient and/or move a workpiece are provided. The positioning apparatus utilizes an actuator system of a given configuration to manipulate a workpiece holding unit with multiple degrees of freedom to achieve various positions and orientations. An associated tool may further be provided to interact with the workpiece in various positions and orientations. The positioning apparatus enables an operator to obtain high degrees of maneuverability while maintaining precision and consistency in the manufacture and production of various products and components.

A stemming system includes a computing device and a stemming device. The computing device includes data processing hardware and memory hardware in communication with the data processing hardware. The data processing hardware includes a transmitter and a receiver. The stemming device is communicatively-coupled to the computing device. The stemming device includes a base portion and a valve-engaging portion. The valve-engaging portion includes a transducer that obtains a measurement communicated to the receiver of the computing device. The measurement includes at least one physical parameter associated with installing a tire-wheel assembly valve to a wheel throughout a process of disposing the valve within a valve hole of the wheel. The processor analyzes a data signature associated with the measurement for determining if the valve has been adequately or inadequately installed by the stemming device.

A slide rack gripper apparatus is provided that simultaneously conveys a plurality of glass slides in the protection of a slide rack within a digital slide scanning apparatus. The slide rack gripper apparatus conveys the plurality of glass slides from a slide rack carousel to a scanning stage for processing. The slide rack gripper includes a first motor attached to a base configured to drive a finger mount attached to the base along a first linear axis. The slide rack gripper apparatus also includes a second motor attached to the finger mount and configured to drive opposing gripper fingers attached to the finger mount along a second linear axis. The second motor is also configured to drive individual gripper fingers along a third linear axis to move the gripper fingers toward each other and away from each other to grasp or release a slide rack.

An assistive robot system includes a lifting mechanism, a movable arm assembly, a processing device, and a non-transitory, processor-readable storage medium in communication with the processing device. The processing device transmits a command to the lifting mechanism to cause the lifting mechanism to move the movable arm assembly such that a container is gripped within the movable arm assembly, transmits a first one or more signals to the movable arm assembly to cause the movable arm assembly to extend in a system longitudinal direction such that the movable arm assembly grips the container. The movable arm assembly is positioned at a release location and transmits a second one or more signals to the movable arm assembly to cause the movable arm assembly to extend in a system lateral direction such that the container gripped within the movable arm assembly is released from the movable arm assembly at the release location.

Actuation systems and methods for actuating a telescopic structure are provided. The actuation system can include a chain cartridge including a drive chain engageably coupled to a drive mechanism actuated by an actuator coupled to a power supply. The drive chain can include a plurality of inter-connected links conveying at least one cable within an interior space of each inter-connected link. The system can also include a telescopic structure including a plurality of segments configured to extend and retract telescopically and conveying the drive chain therein. The drive chain can couple to a distal segment of the plurality of segments. The drive mechanism can impart a linear translation force on the plurality of inter-connected links to cause the distal segment to extend or retract from the telescopic structure. Methods of actuating the actuation system described herein are also provided.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for deblurring an image captured by a robot-mounted camera. One of the methods comprises capturing, using a camera that is attached to an arm of a robot, an image at a first time, wherein the image exhibits motion blur, and wherein the exhibited blur was caused by movement of the arm of the robot at the first time; receiving, from a robot control system of the robot, motion data characterizing the movement of the arm of the robot at the first time; generating a motion kernel using the received motion data; and generating a deblurred image by processing the image using the motion kernel.

Provided is an picking system which can suitably extract a workpiece by machine learning. The picking system is provided with: a robot which has a hand; an acquisition unit which acquires a two-dimensional camera image of an area where a plurality of workpieces are present; a teaching unit which can display the two-dimensional camera image and teach an picking position of a target workpiece to be extracted by the hand from among the plurality of workpieces; a training unit which generates a trained model on the basis of the two-dimensional camera image and the taught picking position; an inference unit which infers the picking position of the target work on the basis of the trained model and the two-dimensional camera image; and a control unit which controls the robot to extract the target workpiece by means of the hand on the basis of the inferred picking position.