Taku Senoo

High-speed batting using a multi-jointed manipulator

In this paper a robotic batting algorithm using a high-speed arm and high-speed stereo vision is proposed. With this strategy, the desired trajectory of the manipulator is generated so that both high-speed swing motion and tracking motion combine to meet the ball squarely with the bat. As a result the manipulator can follow the ball while swinging the bat at high speed even if it is difficult to predict the trajectory of a ball. Experimental results are shown in which a high-speed manipulator hits a ball thrown by a human.

Ball control in high-speed batting motion using hybrid trajectory generator

Speeding up robot motion provides not only improvement in operating efficiency but also improves dexterous manipulation by taking advantage of an unstable state or noncontact state. In this paper we describe a hybrid trajectory generator that produces high-speed manipulation. This algorithm produces both mechanical high-speed motion and sensor-based reactive motion. As an example of high-speed manipulation, a robotic ball control in a batting task has been achieved. Performance evaluation is also analyzed

High-speed throwing motion based on kinetic chain approach

In this paper the robotic throwing task is considered with the goal of achieving high-speed dynamic manipulation. We propose a kinetic chain approach for swing motion focused on torque transmission. In addition the release method using a robotic hand is analyzed for ball control. Experimental results are shown in which a high-speed manipulator throws a ball toward a target.

Skillful manipulation based on high-speed sensory-motor fusion

This video introduces the demonstration of skillful manipulation using a high-speed robot system. The system consists of visual and tactile sensors at a rate of 1 kHz and a high-speed hand-arm manipulator. The high-speed sensory-motor fusion improves not just the speed of existing robot manipulations, but robotic skills by introducing the features peculiar to high-speed motion. Based on such a concept, new variations of skillful manipulation were achieved.

Realtime collision avoidance using a robot manipulator with light-weight small high-speed vision systems

This paper describes a new realtime collision avoidance algorithm for a robot manipulator based on a new visual servo control. In the proposed algorithm, it is not necessary to compute the 3D position of the obstacle. Further, the manipulator can avoid the fast moving obstacle. The developed system uses several small light-weight high-speed vision chips placed on the surface of the robot manipulator. Experimental results of avoiding high-speed motion are shown.

Dynamic compensation by fusing a high-speed actuator and high-speed visual feedback with its application to fast peg-and-hole alignment

This paper presents a dynamic compensation concept to grapple with the dynamic defects of a traditional robot arm, especially while performing high-speed endpoint regulations. The proposed high-speed dynamic compensation concept offers a new point of view for cooperating with a traditional manipulator to realize highly dexterous performance of manipulations. The concept is realized through adoption of a high-speed light-weight actuator as well as endpoint closed loop configured high-speed cameras. The dynamic compensation is analyzed experimentally with 1000 Hz visual feedback and a high-speed finger for a robot arm in the case of one degree of freedom. The advantage of the proposed approach is that the modeling for the robot system’s dynamics is not needed, whereas it is necessary and trivial in order to realize high-speed regulations by traditional approaches. Thus, the control issue becomes easier with the proposed approach. As an application for this concept, fast peg-and-hole alignment with large position and attitude uncertainty is studied. The alignment algorithm is based on a visual compliance strategy. Alignment experiments show that with the proposed concept of dynamic compensation as well as visual compliant motion control, robust and fast convergence was realized for most cases. Graphical Abstract

Fast peg-and-hole alignment using visual compliance

This paper presents a visual compliance strategy to deal with the problem of fast peg-and-hole alignment with large position and attitude uncertainty. With the use of visual compliance and adoption of a light-weight 3-DOF active peg, decoupled alignment for position and attitude is realized. The active peg is capable of high-speed motion and with less dynamic defects than a traditional robot arm. Two high-speed cameras, one configured as eye-in-hand and the other as eye-to-hand are adopted to provide with the task-space feedback. Visual constraints for effecting the visual compliant motion are analyzed. Alignment experiments show that peg-and-hole alignment with the proposed approach could be successfully realized with robust convergence, and on average, the alignment could be realized within 0.7 s in our experimental setting.

Ultra high-speed Robot Based on 1 kHz vision system

This video introduces an ultra high-speed robot as a milestone in the history of intelligent manipulation systems. To develop the ultra high-speed robot under the concept of dynamics matching, we began with the development of a 1 kHz vision system. Next, we developed a sensory-motor fusion system by introducing the 1 kHz vision system. In addition, we have developed a new high-torque mini actuator and a high-speed multi-fingered hand with these incorporated. Integration of these components brings real-time dexterous manipulations unlike commonly-used control based on prediction or learning.

Visuomotor Integration in High-speed Manipulation System

In this paper, visuomotor integration in high-speed manipulation system is discussed, and several dynamic manipulation strategies are proposed as the examples. These applications are based on not only the improvement of the vision and manipulator but also new control strategies. The balanced development of the hardware and the control method can produce new capability of manipulation

Realizing peg-and-hole alignment with one eye-in-hand high-speed camera

In order to deal with the problem of fast peg-and-hole alignment with position and attitude uncertainty, this paper presents a visual servoing approach with a single eye-in-hand high-speed camera. The coupling between the position and attitude alignment as well as the dynamics of robot arm exist as challenging issues for the fast convergence of the alignment process. The proposed motion separation strategy innovatively adopts a high-speed 3-DOF active peg to cooperate with the robot arm under high-speed visual feedback. Alignment experiments show that peg-and-hole alignment with the proposed approach could be successfully realized with fast convergence for most cases.