1X’s EVE is capable of unpacking groceries, while MIT researchers have developed a robot that can help pack things up. The system consists of a soft robotic hand equipped with vision, motor-based proprioception, and soft tactile sensors to identify, sort, as well as pack a stream of unknown objects.
The team calls this a multimodal sensing approach, and it enables the soft robotic manipulator to estimate an object’s size as well as stiffness. This means the system is capable of translating the ill-defined human conception of a “well-packed container” into attainable metrics. A realistic grocery packing scenario was recorded, where objects of arbitrary shape, size, and stiffness move down a conveyor belt and must be placed intelligently to avoid crushing the more delicate objects.
- Build your own awesome, wearable mechanical hand that you operate with your own fingers.
- No motors, no batteries — just the power of air pressure, water, and your own hands!
- Hydraulic pistons enable the mechanical fingers to open and close and grip objects with enough force to lift them. Every finger joint can be adjusted...
Combining tactile and proprioceptive feedback with external vision resulted in a significant reduction in item-damaging packing maneuvers compared to a sensorless baseline (9 x fewer) and vision-only (4.5 x fewer) techniques, successfully demonstrating how the integration of multiple sensing modalities within a soft robotic system can address complex manipulation applications,” said the researchers.
