19 accepted papers
Unlike standard camera that relies on exposure to obtain output frame by frame, event camera only output an event when the change of brightness intensity in a pixel exceed a threshold, and the outputs of different pixels are independent to each other. Benefited from its bio-inspired design, event ca…
To address the challenge of robust 6-DoF grasp prediction in cluttered, unstructured environments, this paper proposes a geometry-aware two-stage grasping framework. First, a plug-and-play Structural Edge-aware Keypoint Extractor is introduced to selectively retain salient edge geometry while mitiga
Unlike a standard camera that relies on exposure to obtain output frame by frame, an event camera only outputs an event when the change of brightness intensity in a pixel exceeds a threshold, and the outputs of different pixels are independent to each other. Benefited from its bio-inspired design, e
Under-actuated robotic grippers, regarded as critical components of robotic grasping, have attracted considerable attention. However, existing under-actuated grippers emerge with several primary issues, including low payload, insufficient force sensing, small grasping force, weak grasping stability…
Robotic kitting has attracted considerable attention in logistics and industrial settings. However, existing kitting methods encounter challenges such as low precision and poor efficiency, limiting their widespread applications. To address these issues, we present a novel kitting framework that impr…
In this letter, a novel dual-ball self-balancing robot is proposed for the first time. Different from the operating principle of the traditional single-ball self-balancing robot, the dual-ball robot can achieve flexible variable-axis rotations though the differential motions of the two balls, and ov
We propose a parallel massage robot with compliant joints based on the series elastic actuator (SEA), offering a unified force-position control approach. First, the kinematic and static force models are established for obtaining the corresponding control variables. Then, a novel force-position contr…
In our daily life, there are many objects represented by cylindrical shapes and ellipsoids. The tops of these objects are formed by elliptic shape primitives. Thus, it is available for a robot to manipulate these objects by ellipse detection. In this work, we propose a novel approach to generating g…
In order to build a stable and reliable system for the Amazon Robotics Challenge we went through a detailed study of the performance and system requirements based on the rules and our past experience of the challenge. The challenge was to build a robot that integrates grasping, vision, motion planni…
We propose a high efficient learning approach to estimating 6D (Degree of Freedom) pose of the textured or texture-less objects for grasping purposes in a cluttered environment where the objects might be partially occluded. The method comprises three main steps. Given a single RGB-D image, we first…
Robotic manipulation of objects requires a fast recognition from image stream. For many cylindrical object (e.g., cans, cups, pipes, bottles, etc.) this is possible through detection of ellipse depicting the circular top of the cylinder. Growing industrial and warehouse applications of robots drive
This work presents a method for automated generation of navigation plan for autonomous or robotic surface vessel. Historical Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is of significant value to this problem. The method joins AIS locations of a same vessel at different time and locations in a region…
This paper describes the design and development of an automated construction quality assessment robot system (QuicaBot) for hollowness, crack, evenness, alignments and inclination problems. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first attempt to pave the way towards a fully autonomous roboti…
In surface treatment processes like plasma spraying and spray painting of workpieces, protecting the uninvolved surface by applying masking tape is a common process. Due to the operation complexity for different geometries, such taping tasks depend on a lot of manual works, which is tedious and tiri…
This paper describes the outcome of a pilot study of deploying humanoid social robots as a teaching aid in preschool classroom. Sixteen K2 students each from two pre-schools were recruited to test commercially available robots, Pepper and Nao. The robots were assigned to different schools and were p…
A robot performs a sequence of motions to animate a given input, e.g., dancing to music or telling a story. Each input is pre-processed to determine labels, e.g., emotions of the music or words in the story. Each label corresponds to multiple motions, and each motion has multiple labels. Therefore,…
A labeled motion library, in which robot motions are associated with semantic meanings, e.g., words, is useful for human-robot interaction, as a robot can use it to autonomously select motions to support its non-verbal communication. Manually assigning labels to new motions to a motion library is ti…
Automating item picking in the e-commerce warehouse is pressing but challenging, due to a massive variety of items, tight environmental constraints and item location uncertainty. In this paper, we present an effective and efficient strategy-based planning approach to implement the robotic picking fr…
Robots have been shown to assist in education and development of social skills in children. However, there has been no study yet that benchmarks the effectiveness of robots with respect to traditional playtools found inside a classroom, such as pretend play items and blocks. This paper presents the…