Here we computationally investigate how encumbering the hand could alter predictions made by the minimum torque change (MTC) and minimum endpoint variance hypotheses (MEPV) of movement planning. After minutes of training, people have made arm trajectories in a robot-generated viscous force field that were similar to previous baseline trajectories without the force field. We simulate the human a...

Robotic assembly has been an active area of manipulation research for several decades. However, almost all assembly tasks, especially complex ones, still need to be performed manually in industrial manufacturing. The difficulty in planning appropriate motion is a major hurdle to robotic assembly. In assembly tasks, manipulated objects come into contact with the environment. Thus, force control ...

A potential field approach, coupled with force-directed methods, is proposed in this paper for drawing graphs with nonuniform nodes in 2-D and 3-D. In our framework, nonuniform nodes are uniformly or nonuniformly charged, while edges are modelled by springs. Using certain techniques developed in the field of potential-based path planning, we are able to find analytically tractable procedures fo...

We propose a method to learn compliant motions from demonstration to reduce the need for positional accuracy in an assembly task. An example of compliant motion in workpiece alignment is depicted in Fig. 1. Impedance control is a natural control method to realize compliant motions, but the drawback is that it makes motion planning difficult. Preimage planning [1] can be used for planning compli...

In this paper we will address the problem of planning optimal grasps. Two general optimality criteria, that consider the total finger force and the maximum finger force will be introduced and discussed. Moreover their formalization, using various metrics on a space of generalized forces, will be detailed. The geometric interpretation of the two criteria will lead to an efficient planning algori...

With collaborative robots and the recent developments in manufacturing technologies, physical interactions between humans represent a vital role performing tasks. Most previous studies have focused on robot motion planning control during execution of task. However, further research is required for direct contact human-robot or robot-robot interactions, such as co-manipulation. In co-manipulatio...

This paper introduces the planning and control software of a teleoperating robotic system for minimally invasive surgery. It addresses the problem of how to organize a complex system with 41 degrees of freedom including robot setup planning, force feedback control and nullspace handling with three robotic arms. The planning software is separated into sequentially executed planning and registrat...