Carlo Canali

In-hand precise twisting and positioning by a novel dexterous robotic gripper for industrial high-speed assembly

In electronic manufacturing system, the design of the robotic hand with sufficient dexterity and configuration is important for the successful accomplishment of the assembly task. Due to the growing demand from high-mix manufacturing industry, it is difficult for the traditional robot to grasp a large number of assembly parts or tools having cylinder shapes with correct postures. In this research, a novel jaw like gripper with human-sized anthropomorphic features is designed for in-hand precise positioning and twisting online. It retains the simplicity feature of traditional industrial grippers and dexterity features of dexterous grippers. It can apply a constant gripping force on assembly parts and performs reliable twisting movement within limited time to meet the industrial requirements. Manipulating several cylindrical assembly parts by robot, as an experimental case in this paper, is studied to evaluate its performance. The effectiveness of proposed gripper design and mechanical analysis is proved by the simulation and experimental results.

An automatic assembly parts detection and grasping system for industrial manufacturing

In this work, supported by the AUTORECON European Project, a highly reconfigurable gripper equipped with vision system for factory automation is described. The gripper has been designed to be dexterous and able to adapt itself to grasp parts within a wide range of shapes and weights. Following a similar strategy, the vision system does not need any database or training. It can be used to manage the grasping of objects that are unknown in advance, regardless from their position or alignment within the working range of the gripper. Before grasping the parts, the vision system automatically detects the position of the object. The optimal grasping points are then deduced by analyzing the geometry features of the part and the actual position and configuration of the fingers of the gripper. The detection and decision on proper grasping points is fast in the order of tens ms, so the whole system can be successfully used even if the parts are swiftly moving on a conveyor.

A novel bio-inspired modular gripper for in-hand manipulation

In the automation industry, in-hand manipulation is a frequently required task which needs a significant dexterity of grippers. Operations such as object twisting, re-grasp and repositioning with correct posture are the major challenges driving the gripper design and which determine its complexity. This paper proposes a new bio-inspired modular gripper which is capable to provide an object with motions of rotation about two independent axes. The proposed gripper is a modular device made of four identical fingers each one having two DOFs. Moreover, a proper mechanism was conceived to move two fingers out of four so as to ensure the grasping. In this research, the feasibility of the idea is proved by means of simulations in a multibody environment.

High Reconfigurable Robotic Gripper for Flexible Assembly

This paper describes a general purpose gripper to be used into industrial manufacturing application. The gripper has been developed in the context of the AUTORECON project. It is based on a 2 degrees of freedom finger that is able to adapt itself to objects of various shape, size, material and weight. Thanks to its highly reconfigurable and adaptive capabilities, the gripper described here is an attempt to create a gripper suitable in industrial application to assemble compounds of several different workpieces using only one robot. The high dexterity and the wide range of possible uses of the gripper described here intends to explore a new approach to the design of industrial grippers to be used in factory automation. Moreover, the adaptive capabilities of this gripper make it suitable to grasp workpieces with complicated geometry or highly irregular shape, as it has been proved in performed automotive test rig described here.Copyright

A study on data-driven in-hand twisting process using a novel dexterous robotic gripper for assembly automation

In electronic manufacturing system, the design of the robotic hand with sufficient dexterity and configuration is important for the successful accomplishment of the assembly task. It is significant that the robot can grasp assembly parts and do some simple in-hand manipulation so as to fit them with the package slots. In this research, we study the process of precise in-hand posture transition problem using a novel jaw like gripper with human-sized anthropomorphic features. We transform the in-hand manipulation problem into a series of static grasping problems. Then we study the successful twisting condition on each grasp frame by analyzing its dynamic performance and requirements. Based on this data-driven idea, simulation and experimental data is obtained from both successful and failed trials. Finally, we create the distribution of parameters grasp map for successful twisting.

Error recovery strategies for electronic connectors mating in robotic fault-tolerant assembly system

Mating of electronic connectors is an indispensable process for assembling electrical elements in wiring harness manufacturing system. This paper presents error recovery strategies for electronic connectors mating assembly with uncertain position. In this system, there is no visual assistance but only a force sensor is used to recognize errors during mating. A tilt strategy for error recovery method is also proposed to guide the connecter assembly, and corresponding search strategies are proposed for fault detection and diagnosis and recovering errors raised in connector mating. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed strategies is able to diagnose the position errors within the assembly process accurately, and realize error recovery effectively.

FLEGX: A bioinspired design for a jumping humanoid leg

Robotics in the last decades is moving towards bioinspired solutions in order to develop systems increasingly integrated with the human environment. Among them, legged robots fascinates more and more researchers thanks to their ability of moving in unstructured environment such as the ones typical of earthquakes, where in the near future robots are planned to be send to help humans while performing dangerous tasks. On the base of this findings, the authors propose a novel concept for a jumping humanoid leg, based on the key role played from the structural flexibility. The geometric and dynamic features of this leg have been selected thanks to a targeted set of numerical simulations. An extensive campaign of experimental tests useful for the validation of the numerical model here presented will be a matter of future works.

Origami Carton Folding Analysis Using Flexible Panels

This paper demonstrates a virtual prototyping of origami carton folding process using flexible panels instead of using rigid panels. The aims of this work are, to study of contact forces between flexible panels and fingers and further also to explore different non-rigid materials to be considered as a panel-body in future for different synchronous carton folding applications. Similar to previous research, in this paper, the D-RAPS multi-finger robot has been used in simulation and the mechanism of the robot fingers are explained. That work also permits to investigate the torque between two panels.

KARL: A new bio-inspired modular limb for robotic applications

The modular and self-reconfigurable mechanisms are arising the interest of the robotics research community for their peculiarities of flexibility and cost effectiveness. In this scenario, this work presents a newly conceived device suitable for being used as a limb, as well as a planar two degrees of freedom manipulator, for robotic applications. The concept design here exposed merges the features of both parallel and serial kinematic mechanisms to obtain a limb whose primary characteristic is that of being independent from the frame to whom it is connected. In fact the actuation is realized by means of two linear motors directly arranged on the body and connected to the chassis through different closed kinematic chains. The manuscript introduces the formal aspects of this novel limb facing position, differential kinematics, expected performances and experimental results obtained thanks to a specifically built prototype.

A novel parallely actuated bio-inspired modular limb

An increasing interest towards functionally independent and self-reconfigurable robots featured the research direction in the recent past. Such attention is well explained by the characteristics of flexibility and cost-effectiveness which distinguish these modular machines. This scenario framed the birth of many different devices characterized by simplicity of use and versatility. The present manuscript follows these trends by presenting a newly conceived device suitable for being used as a limb, as well as a planar two degrees of freedom manipulator. The features of both parallel and serial kinematic mechanisms have been exploited to the aim of obtaining a device as much as possible independent from the frame to whom it is connected. Formal aspects about position and velocity kinematics are addressed and a specifically built prototype is then used for experimental tests on the new limb.