Robot Hand Is Smart And Sensitive (And Single)
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 18 of September , 2007 at 4:41 am
By Evan Ackerman
Robot hands with dynamic grip pressure are certainly nothing new, but thus far, controlling pressure has involved feedback from the object being gripped, and that means you have to first grip the object, the upshot being that if a robot is trying to grip something unknown without either crushing or dropping it, the robot has to proceed very slowly and carefully. Intel Research Seattle has developed a technology called “pre-touch” which uses electrical conductivity sensors to determine where an object is and (to some extent) what it’s made of without touching it. This is a better system than more conventional stereo video largely because the robot’s hand necessarily gets in between the video and the object at close range. Currently, the technology can’t see insulating objects like thin plastic, wood, or paper, but there are other types touchless sensors under development.
[ Intel Research Seattle ] VIA [ Technology Review ]
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Category: Research
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