An Electric Field Pretouch system for grasping and co-manipulation

— Pretouch sensing is longer range than contact, but shorter range than vision. The hypothesis motivating this work is that closed loop feedback based on short range but noncontact measurements can improve the reliability of manipulation. This paper presents a grasping system that is guided at short range by Electric Field (EF) Pretouch. We describe two sets of experiments. The first set of experiments involves human-to-robot and robot-to-human handoff, including the use of EF Pretouch to detect whether or not a human is also touching an object that the robot is holding, which we call the “co-manipulation state.” In the second set of experiments, the robot picks up standalone objects. We describe a number of techniques that servo the arm and fingers in order to both collect relevant geometrical information, and to actually perform the manipulation task.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Brian Mayton, Louis LeGrand, Joshua R. Smith
• Keywords: ICRA 2010, Longer Range, Robotics, Short Range, Shorter Range