Haptic Exploration of Unknown Objects for Robust In-Hand Manipulation

Human-like robot hands provide the flexibility to manipulate a variety of objects that are found in unstructured environments. Knowledge of object properties and motion trajectory is required, but often not available in real-world manipulation tasks. Although it is possible to grasp and manipulate unknown objects, an uninformed grasp leads to inferior stability, accuracy, and repeatability of the manipulation. Therefore, a central challenge of in-hand manipulation in unstructured environments is to acquire this information safely and efficiently. We propose an in-hand manipulation framework that does not assume any prior information about the object and the motion, but instead extracts the object properties through a novel haptic exploration procedure and learns the motion from demonstration using dynamical movement primitives. We evaluate our approach by unknown object manipulation experiments using a human-like robot hand. The results show that haptic exploration improves the manipulation robustness and accuracy significantly, compared to the virtual spring framework baseline method that is widely used for grasping unknown objects.

Industry 5.0 or industry 4.0S? Introduction to industry 4.0 and a peek into the prospective industry 5.0 technologies

The Industrial Revolution can be termed as the transformation of traditional industrial practices into new techniques dominated by the technologies available at that time. The first three industrial revolutions were driven respectively by mechanization, electrification, and automation which had gradually transformed the agrarian economy into a manufacturing-based economy. It helped in enhancing the lifestyle of the factory workers and the healthcare system, which improved the overall quality of living. The industries that adapted to the change witnessed a tremendous increase in the production of goods, competitive advantage, and cross-border business opportunities. While we are currently living to see the fourth industrial revolution (also known as Industry 4.0) unfolding around us, the world is poised for the next big leap, the fifth industrial revolution or Industry 5.0. Hence, the first half of the paper outlines the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 and conceptualizes how they would act as the foundation for the fifth industrial revolution. The socio-economic challenges of the technologies and the need for Industry 5.0 technologies are also discussed. The second half of the paper outlines the prospective technologies of Industry 5.0, their potential applications from the perspective of industry leaders and scholars and conceptualizes how they can overcome the challenges of Industry 4.0. The definition of “sustainability trilemma” a new term coined by the authors, and the reasoning for calling the next industrial revolution “Industry 4.0S” (another new term) rather than Industry 5.0 are also presented.

Soft robotics for infrastructure protection

The paradigm change introduced by soft robotics is going to dramatically push forward the abilities of autonomous systems in the next future, enabling their applications in extremely challenging scenarios. The ability of soft robots to safely interact and adapt to the surroundings is key to operate in unstructured environments, where the autonomous agent has little or no knowledge about the world around it. A similar context occurs when critical infrastructures face threats or disruptions, for examples due to natural disasters or external attacks (physical or cyber). In this case, autonomous systems may be employed to respond to such emergencies and have to be able to deal with unforeseen physical conditions and uncertainties, where the mechanical interaction with the environment is not only inevitable but also desirable to successfully perform their tasks. In this perspective, I discuss applications of soft robots for the protection of infrastructures, including recent advances in pipelines inspection, rubble search and rescue, and soft aerial manipulation, and promising perspectives on operations in radioactive environments, underwater monitoring and space exploration.