A system for determining a discrete number of flexible, non-rigid workpiece items loaded onto a robotic carrier. The system includes a robotic carrier capable of traveling to multiple workstations, at least one of which is a weigh station. A loading mechanism is functional to load one or more workpieces onto the robotic carrier which weighed by the weigh station. By comparing the weight of the loaded items with a predetermined weight range of a single workpiece, the number of discrete workpieces loaded onto the robotic carrier can be determined. In addition, a method can be provided for determine position error of a mobile robot based on a detected center of gravity of the mobile robot.

An interactive robot having mechanical torso, limbs, and head assembled for movement with multiple degrees of freedom to enable life-like movements and responses. The robot's head may further include LED displays as the eyes and mouth, and a speaker associated with the mouth. These features enable life-like audio and visual responses, including complex facial expressions and conversational audio interaction.

The invention relates to a method for calibrating a virtual force sensor of a robot manipulator, wherein the following steps are carried out in a plurality of poses: applying an external wrench to the robot manipulator, ascertaining an estimate of the external wrench, ascertaining a first calibration matrix based on the ascertained estimate and a specified external wrench, ascertaining a second calibration matrix by inverting the first calibration matrix, and storing the respective second calibration matrix in a data set of all of the second calibration matrices, thereby assigning each second calibration matrix to the respective pose for which each second calibration matrix was ascertained.

A robot control device executes assist control for generating an assist force in a direction of an external force applied to a robot in a case where a position of the robot is located in a first area set in a work area of the robot when the external force is applied to the robot. The robot control device stops the execution of the assist control in a case where the position of the robot is located in a second area set outside the work area of the robot. The robot control device restricts the execution of the assist control in a case where the position of the robot is located in a third area set outside the first area and inside the second area.

Inspection robots and methods for inspection of curved surfaces with sensors at selected horizontal distances are described. An example of such an inspection robot includes a housing; a drive module with a wheel and a motor operatively linked to the housing, a plurality of sensor sleds, and a payload. The payload, which is coupled to the housing, may include a first and a second rail component, each with at least one connector, where the rail components are connectable at a first selected position of a plurality of discrete engagement positions. Each of the rail components may be structured to support at least one of the plurality of sleds where each of the plurality of sleds is coupled to the payload at a respective selected horizontal position such that the plurality of sleds are at selected horizontal distances from each other.

A method includes receiving data collected by at least one sensor on a robotic device, wherein the data is to be used for an ambient environment state representation, and wherein the data represents ambient environment measurements collected at locations of the at least one sensor when the robotic device is passively monitoring an environment such that robotic device navigation is not based on the ambient environment state representation. The method further includes determining the ambient environment state representation using the data collected by the at least one sensor on the robotic device. The method also includes identifying, based on the ambient environment state representation, one or more anomalous ambient environment measurements. The method additionally includes causing, based on the one or more identified anomalous ambient environment measurements, the robotic device to actively monitor the environment such that robotic device navigation is based on the ambient environment state representation.

A system for delivering an article from a first location to a second location with a robot having a closeable transport container for housing the article during transport. A closeable recipient container is provided at the second location for receiving the article. At least one computer configured to navigate the robot over an outdoor transportation network between locations is provided. The robot has a robot article transport mechanism controlled by the at least one computer for removing the article from the transport container and the recipient container has a recipient article transport mechanism for moving the article inside the recipient container.

A method for a robot to automatically find a bending position, including the following steps: step 1, establishing a gripper tool coordinate system (TX, TY, TZ); step 2, determining a user coordinate system (X.sub.A, Y.sub.A, Z.sub.A; X.sub.B, Y.sub.B, Z.sub.B) of rear blocking fingers (11, 21); step 3, a robot gripper moving horizontally, and detecting the state of sensors (12, 22); step 4, the robot gripper executing a rotational movement, detecting the state of the sensors (12, 22), and thereby obtaining a standard bending position. The robot automatically finds the bending position, the teaching difficulty is reduced, and the bending quality is increased. In the elevator industry, elevator door plate bending sizes are the same, but forming sizes are different. In the present invention, only one product process needs to be taught in order to satisfy elevator door plate processing with different specifications, thereby reducing maintenance costs and increasing production efficiency.

A robot system includes a slave unit including a slave-side force detector configured to detect a direction and a magnitude of a reaction force acting on a workpiece held by a work end of a slave arm, a master unit including a master-side force detector configured to detect a direction and a magnitude of an operating force applied by an operator to an operation end of a master arm, and a system controller configured to generate a slave operational command and a master operational command based on the operating force and the reaction force. The system controller includes a regulator configured to correct a moving direction of the work end so that the movement of the work end in a pressing direction of an object is regulated when the reaction force exceeds an acceptable value set beforehand.

A tactile sensing system of a robot may include: a plurality of piezoelectric elements disposed at an object, and including a transmission (TX) piezoelectric element and a reception (RX) piezoelectric element; and at least one processor configured to: control the TX piezoelectric element to generate an acoustic wave having a chirp spread spectrum (CSS) at every preset time interval, along a surface of the object; receive, via the RX piezoelectric element, an acoustic wave signal corresponding to the generated acoustic wave; select frequency bands from a plurality of frequency bands of the acoustic wave signal; and estimate a location of a touch input on the surface of the object by inputting the acoustic wave signal of the selected frequency bands into a neural network configured to provide a touch prediction score for each of a plurality of predetermined locations on the surface of the object.