Program Overview
08:45 Opening Remark (Van Anh Ho, Shinichi Hirai)
08:50 Jingang Yi “Contact Modeling for Slip Detection of Car’s Smart Tire”
09:30 Damith Chathuranga “Soft 3 Axis Force Sensor for Surface Quality Control of Non-Ferromagnetic Products”
10:00 Van Anh Ho “Beam Bundle Model for Soft-Contact Based System”
10:35 Coffee Break
10:55 Hongbin Liu “Soft Fingers for Robotic Grasping”
11:35 Wang Zhonkui “Modeling of Human Fingertip for Studying Tactile Sensation of Slippage during Contact”
12:05 Closing Remark (Van Anh Ho, Shinichi Hirai)
Perceptions originated from soft-object based contact/movements have increasingly become an emerging issue in automation engineering that relates to deformable objects, such as soft robotics, food industry, medical treatment, vehicles, and so on. Mechanics of soft-object contact is different to solid-object based contact, since it strongly depends on the geometry of contact, force distribution profile, and micro stick/slip phenomena. In most cases, soft contact and its stick/slip phenomenon cause troubles for automatic systems. Thus, it needs to be clearly studied in order to plan control strategies for stable operations of systems. As a result, the purpose of this workshop is two-fold. Firstly, it is to clarify inherent characteristics of soft contact and slip/stick phenomena in relative movement/contact of deformable objects by recent developments in modeling and analysis. Secondly, it is to introduce recent technologies that utilize the soft contact and its related perceptions in fabrication of novel soft sensors and actuators in robotics and automation. The workshop includes inspiring talks from invited speakers who are well known in robotics and automation, and featured by short talks or posters regarding latest-breaking research.
Organizers:
Van Anh Ho, Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan, and Shinichi Hirai, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.
More detailed information about the workshop.
List of topics and their descriptions:
1. Contact Modeling for Slip Detection of Car’s Smart Tire
Jingang Yi
Pneumatic tires are widely used for mobile robots and vehicles. Tire/road interactions play an important role in the safe operation and design of these systems. In this talk, we focus on the tire/road contact problem and study the stick-slip interactions between the stationary tire and the firm road. A pressure-sensitive, electric conductive rubber sensor is embedded inside the tire rubber layer to measure the force distributions. We analyze the frictional forces and deformation distributions using a cantilever beam-based modeling approach. The analytical results explain the stick-slip evolution between the tire and the road. The analyses and models are also validated by experiments.
2. Soft 3 Axis Force Sensor for Surface Quality Control of Non-Ferromagnetic Products
Damith Chathuranga
Quality controlling the surface finish in woodproducts, painted surfaces, and metal castings ect. is an im-portant step in manufacturing process. Presently most of the surface quality is assessed by trained factory personal. They feel the soft or roughness of the product surface by sliding their hands over the product surface. Tactile awareness ofhands is used in deciding if the surface has acceptable surface finish to pass the quality control check. This process is highly individualized and worker decide the quality by his or her own judgement. Automating such tasks is difficult as tactile systems that are reliable and cheap are rare whilst standards for surface quality in terms of easily measurable values are difficult to define. We believe that if a system had the ability to classify and distinguish materials and textures, it has the potential to be used in assessing surface finish and be used in quality control tasks. We propose a new three axis tactile sensor, based on magnetic flux measurements, to obtain three dimensional tactile data. This data is then used in a texture classification algorithm utilizing support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Frobenius norm calculated from the covariance matrix of the above tactile data and the three means of the three dimensional data were used as features. Palpation velocity and small vertical load variances had minimum influence on the proposed algorithm, making it robust and utilizable to industrial quality control tasks.
3. Beam Bundle Model for Soft-Contact Based System
Van Anh Ho
Presents a model for displaying friction and localized stick/slip of sliding inhomogeneous human-like fingertips, to understand how slippage occurs and its role in assessing tactile sensing mechanics. In the absence of friction, the fingertip slides, as on an ice surface, in the virtual world of haptic interfaces. Slippage of fingertip at very low velocity can reflect micro stick/slip on a contact area, which is challenging to represent in any friction model. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose that a Beam Bundle Model (BBM) can be used to model a human fingertip during pushing and sliding actions, especially during stick-to-slip transition. To construct its three-dimensional, non-homogeneous structure, we obtained a sequential series of magnetic resonance images, showing consecutive cross-sectional layers of a fingertip with distribution of skin, tissue, bone, and nail. Simulation results showed that this model could generate not only normal force distribution caused by pushing, but also response of friction during stick-to-slip transition. Secondly, and more interestingly, the model dynamically produced localized displacement phenomena on the contact area during stick-to-slip phase, indicating how slippage enlarges the contact area prior to total slippage of the fingertip. These findings may better assess the sliding processes of human fingertips, and how and when slippage occurs on the contact surface. This model may be a useful platform for studying tactile perception of fingertips.
4. Soft Fingers for Robotic Grasping
Hongbin Liu
Soft fingers provide numerous distinctive advantages for robot grasping. Since soft fingers are conformable to object local shapes due to their natural compliance, they offer much better stability and higher friction coefficients compared to the rigid counterparts. However the deformation and compliance of soft finger bring new challenge to the sensing and control. This talk introduces our research on the contact sensing of a deformable fingertip based on soft tissue modelling and intrinsic force/torque sensing. Leveraging the accurate contact information, such as contact locations, tangential and normal force vectors, we have achieved efficient and robust in-hand finger-object interaction control and slip avoidance. Furthermore we have exploited the rich contact information to enhance the accuracy of object recognition after the object has been grasped in-hand, a situation where visual feedback is often occluded.
5. Modeling of Human Fingertip for Studying Tactile Sensation of Slippage during Contact
Wang Zhonkui
Presents a model for displaying friction and localized stick/slip of sliding inhomogeneous human-like fingertips, to understand how slippage occurs and its role in assessing tactile sensing mechanics. In the absence of friction, the fingertip slides, as on an ice surface, in the virtual world of haptic interfaces. Slippage of fingertip at very low velocity can reflect micro stick/slip on a contact area, which is challenging to represent in any friction model. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose that a Beam Bundle Model (BBM) can be used to model a human fingertip during pushing and sliding actions, especially during stick-to-slip transition. To construct its three-dimensional, non-homogeneous structure, we obtained a sequential series of magnetic resonance images, showing consecutive cross-sectional layers of a fingertip with distribution of skin, tissue, bone, and nail. Simulation results showed that this model could generate not only normal force distribution caused by pushing, but also response of friction during stick-to-slip transition. Secondly, and more interestingly, the model dynamically produced localized displacement phenomena on the contact area during stick-to-slip phase, indicating how slippage enlarges the contact area prior to total slippage of the fingertip. These findings may better assess the sliding processes of human fingertips, and how and when slippage occurs on the contact surface. This model may be a useful platform for studying tactile perception of fingertips.
List of speakers and their biographical sketch:
1. Jingang Yi, Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
Dr. Jingang Yi received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 1993, the M.Eng. degree in precision instruments from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1996, and the M.A. degree in mathematics and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001 and 2002, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rutgers University. His research interests include autonomous robotic systems, dynamic systems and control, mechatronics, automation science and engineering, with applications to biomedical systems, civil infrastructure and transportation systems.
2. Damith Chathuranga, Research Assistant
Soft Robotic Lab., Ritsumeikan Universit
Damith Chathuranga received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2009, and an M.S. in robotics from Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, in 2013. He is currently studying for a PhD in Robotics at Ritsumeikan University. He was a visiting researcher at Kings College London, UK in 2014. His current research interests include humanoid robotics, anthropomorphic hands, soft-fingered manipulation, haptics for bio-medical applications and tactile sensors.
3. Van Anh Ho He received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering, in 2007, from Hanoi University of Technology, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in robotics, in 2012, from Ritsumeikan University. He worked at Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellow, and Advanced R&D Center, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. before moving to Ryukoku University, where he is currently working as Assistant Professor at Soft Haptic Lab. His current research interests include automation engineering, robotics, anthropomorphic hand, soft fingered manipulation, and fabrication of tactile sensor. He is a student member of IEEE, RSJ.
4. Hongbin Liu, Assistant Professor
Centre for Robotics Research (CORE), King’s College London, UK
Dr. Hongbin Liu is a lecturer (Assistant Professor) at King’s College London, Department of Informatics, Centre for Robotics Research (CoRe). He obtained a PhD in Robotics from King’s College London in 2010. His current research has been focused on developing robotic devices and algorithms to understand the properties of object based on the tactile/force perception and the modeling of dynamic interactions. He has also been working on the design of robotic fingertips for advanced contact sensing and flexible robotic devices for diagnosing soft tissue during robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery.
5. Zhongkui Wang, Assistant Professor
Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan Universit
Dr. Wang was born in Heilongjiang, China, in 1978. He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in mechanical engineering from Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China, in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in science and engineering from Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan, in 2011. He had also studied as a Doctoral Candidate in mechanical engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, and graduated in 2007 without a degree. He is currently an Assistantl Professor with the Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan University. His current research interest is modeling, simulation, and parameter estimation of soft deformable objects