We describe a force-controlled robotic gripper with built-in tactile and 3D perception. We also describe a complete autonomous manipulation pipeline consisting of object detection, segmentation, point cloud processing, force-controlled manipulation, and symbolic (re)-planning. The design emphasizes versatility in terms of applications, manufacturability, use of commercial off-the-shelf parts, and open-source software. We validate the design by characterizing force control (achieving up to 32N, controllable in steps of 0.08N), force measurement, and two manipulation demonstrations: assembly of the Siemens gear assembly problem, and a sensor-based stacking task requiring replanning. These demonstrate robust execution of long sequences of sensor-based manipulation tasks, which makes the resulting platform a solid foundation for researchers in task-and-motion planning, educators, and quick prototyping of household and warehouse automation tasks.
References
N. Correll, D. Kriegman, S. Otte and J. Watson. A versatile robotic hand with 3D perception, force sensing for autonomous manipulation. In Proceedings of Workshop on Perception and Manipulation Challenges for Warehouse Automation, Robotics: Science and Systems, Daegu, Korea.