A stretchable sensor skin is provided, which is a soft tactile sensor sleeve that can cover large areas of a robot, and is both low-cost and robust. It is made of elastomer molded pouches (referred to as sensor taxels) that when contacted transmit pneumatic pressure to off-board barometric sensors, via stretchable channels. The entirely soft makeup of the sleeve makes it highly conformable to 3D curved geometries of a robot. The stretchable channels mean that it can cover joints without wiring getting caught. The stretchable rubber channels are also inherently more robust than stretchable conductor approaches, and the skin lacks fragile soft-rigid interfaces that has plagued many other sensor skins. The fact that there are no conductive components also makes the skin easy to sanitize and waterproof.

Achieving high spatial resolution in contact sensing for robotic manipulation often comes at the price of increased complexity in fabrication and integration. One traditional approach is to fabricate a large number of taxels, each delivering an individual, isolated response to a stimulus. In contrast, proposed sensor includes a continuous volume of soft material, e.g., a piezoresistive elastomer with a number of terminals embedded inside. Piezoresistive effects can be measured between all pairs of terminals in the set, and this rich signal set can contain the information needed to pinpoint contact location with high accuracy using regression algorithms. Submillimeter median accuracy can be demonstrated in locating contact on a 10 mm by 16 mm sensor using only four terminals (creating six unique pairs). In addition to extracting more information from fewer wires, this approach lends itself to simple fabrication methods and makes no assumptions about the underlying geometry, simplifying future integration on robot fingers.

A robot includes a movable section, a first member disposed in the movable section, a second member configured to form a space between the second member and the first member, a third member located between the first member and the second member and configured to restrain displacement of the second member in a direction separating from the first member, and a pressure detecting section configured to detect pressure in the space.

A method is provided for the alignment of a multiaxial manipulator with an input device, which serves to control the manipulator, which method includes the steps of execution of one or more reference movements with the input device, execution of one or more reference movements with the manipulator, recording of the executed reference movements, calculation of a transformation matrix based on the recorded reference movements, and use of the calculated transformation matrix for the alignment of the movements of the input device with the manipulator.

Tactile sensing using both coarse and fine tactile sensors. A coarse tactile sensor having a first sensitive area at least partially encompasses or overlies a plurality of fine tactile sensors, each having a respective sensitive area smaller than the first sensitive area. The coarse tactile sensor(s) and fine tactile sensors may be carried on a same circuit board or separate circuit boards. Processor(s) circuits are communicatively coupled to the coarse and/or fine tactile sensors. Information indicative of at least a presence or absence of force or pressure at a given location monitored by the respective tactile sensor, and/or a measure of the force or pressure or strain is collected. Such may be mounted to a backing, and optionally covered or encased in an artificial skin. Collecting sensor readings employs both coarse and fine tactile sensors, sampling corresponding fine tactile sensors in response to detection by a coarse tactile sensor.

A biomimetics based robot is disclosed. The robot may include filament driven and fluid pumped elastomer based artificial muscles coordinated for slow twitch/fast twitch contraction and movement of the robot by one or more microcontrollers. A process may provide physics based simulation for movement of a robot in a virtual setting. Embodiments include artificial skin and sensor systems in the artificial muscles and artificial skin whose feedback is used to control the muscles and movement of the robot.

A system for robot and human collaboration. The system comprises: a multi-axis robot; one or more torque sensors, each torque sensor being configured to measure a torque about a respective axis of the multi-axis robot; and a controller configured to: receive one or more torque measurements taken by the one or more torque sensors; compare the one or more torque measurements or a function of the one or more torque measurements to a threshold value; and control the multi-axis robot based on the comparison.

A jointed mechanism includes a passive pendulum system attached to and suspended from the multi-axis robot. The system includes one or more position sensors configured to measure a joint angle on the pendulum system, at least one arm, and an end-effector attached to a distal end of the pendulum system. A controller implements a method to selectively control motion of the robot in a plurality of control modes. The control modes include a Cooperative Mode and an Autonomous Mode. The controller is configured to detect contact with the end-effector when operating in the Autonomous Mode, and to automatically initiate a control action in response to the contact. The pendulum system may be a parallelogram arrangement.

Systems, devices, articles, and methods as disclosed, described, illustrated, and claimed herein. The systems, devices, articles, and methods generally relates to the field of robotics.

A system maintains, generates, and manages layouts that map resources to control states of a robotic apparatus. The system may receive system control queries and produce search results and contextual information in response. The system may reference the system control queries against the layouts to determine the search results and contextual information. The contextual information may include operator-interactive tools that may be used to control the robotic apparatus. To control the apparatus, the system may generate control state update messages responsive to the operator interactions. The control state update messages may be sent to a control interface of the robotic device. The robotic device may execute an action responsive the receipt of the control state update message.