Waveguides, such as light guides, made entirely of elastomeric material or with indents on an outer surface are disclosed. These improved waveguides can be used in scissors, soft robotics, or displays. For example, the waveguides can be used in a strain sensor, a curvature sensor, or a force sensor. In an instance, the waveguide can be used in a hand prosthetic. Sensors that use the disclosed waveguides and methods of manufacturing waveguides also are disclosed.

The technology disclosed herein is directed to a medical manipulator system having a medical device. The medical device such as endoscope or other surgical instrument includes an elongated insertion portion. A holder assembly includes an articulated arm carrying the medical device that is attached thereto and is actuated following movement of the medical device and holds the medical device in a stationary state at a desired position. A position/attitude detection unit detects positions and attitudes of the elongated insertion portion in plurality states into which the medical device is caused to swing about a constraint point. A constraint point estimation unit estimates a position of the constraint point based on the positions and attitudes of the insertion portion as detected by the position/attitude detection unit.

The present disclosure relates to the technical field of electronic products, more particularly to a module-unit-position servo system for detecting the position change between two rotating portions in a module unit of a modular robot; the module unit includes a position sensor disposed in any of the rotating portions and a pair of circumferentially rotatable motion pairs for connecting the two rotating portions; the position sensor senses the rotation-angle information between the motion pairs and controls at least one of the rotating portions to rotate according to the rotation-angle information in combination with a target-angle command A control method for the modular-unit-position servo system and a modular robot is further provided. The module-unit-position servo system and the control method therefor, and the modular robot of the present disclosure have the advantages of compact design, high accuracy in measuring speed and angle.

As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a device for controlling a collaborative robot includes a collision detection unit configured to sense a collision of the collaborative robot; a control unit configured to control an operation mode of the collaborative robot when the collision detection unit senses the collision; and a collision countermeasure unit configured to apply, when the collision detection unit senses the collision, a collision compensation value to each of a plurality of joints in the collaborative robot so as to change a proceeding direction of a force applied to the each of the plurality of joints.

A transfer system in the form of a robot line used in one embodiment to transfer products, such as slices of meat or other fresh food, while complying with the hygienic requirements. The robot line may transfer the products, simply and with little constructive and financial effort. The robots used for this purpose may be very simply constructed with only one swivel arm and the robot base may be guided below the working plane, and only the swivel arm and the gripper may be disposed above the working plane.

The present invention provides a method for robot action imitation learning in a three-dimensional space and a system thereof, relates to the technical fields of artificial intelligence and robots. A method based on a series-parallel multi-layer backpropagation (BP) neural network is designed for robot action imitation learning in a three-dimensional space, which applies an imitation learning mechanism to a robot learning system, under the framework of the imitation learning mechanism, to train and learn by transmitting demonstrative information generated from a mechanical arm to the series-parallel multi-layer BP neural network representing a motion strategy. The correspondence between a state characteristic matrix set of the motion and an action characteristic matrix set of the motion is learned, to reproduce the demonstrative action, and generalize the actions and behaviors, so that when facing different tasks, the method does not need to carry out action planning separately, thereby achieving high intelligence.

Systems and methods for detecting an escalator in a surrounding environment by a robotic apparatus are disclosed herein. According to at least one exemplary embodiment, an escalator may be determined based on an escalator detection parameter being met. The escalator detection parameter my further require detection of two side walls separated by a distance equal to a width of an escalator and detection of a depreciation in a floor equal to that observed between a stationary portion and a moving first step of an escalator.

A handling apparatus has an arm having a joint; a holding portion attached to the arm and configured to hold an object; a sensor configured to detect a plurality of the objects; and a control apparatus configured to control the arm and the holding portion, wherein the control apparatus is configured to calculate an ease of holding the object by the holding portion as a score based on information acquired by the sensor with respect to each object and each holding method, select the object to hold and the holding method according to the score, and calculate a position for holding the selected object and an orientation of the arm.

Disclosed are techniques and systems for automatically determining and correcting the levelness of a wafer handling robot end effector. The systems may use a tilt sensor or a gravitational field sensor which may be calibrated to the wafer handling robot. The output from the tilt sensor may be used to determine or estimate the tilt of an end effector of the wafer handling robot and to perform correctional positioning to reduce or eliminate the tilt, to automatically teach certain positions that have reduced tilt, to perform health checks on the robot, provide feedback to a user, etc.

A method is for operating a manipulator that has a movement device, a compensating device, and a tool. In the method, a relative displacement of the compensating device, with respect to a target position, is sensed during setting-up and is taken into account in a subsequent control of the manipulator.