While modern cameras provide machines with a very well-developed sense of vision, robots still lack such a comprehensive solution for their sense of touch. At ETH Zurich, in the group led by Prof. Raffaello D’Andrea at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, we have developed a tactile sensing principle that allows robots to retrieve rich contact feedback from their interactions with the environment. I recently described our approach in a TEDx talk at the last TEDxZurich. The talk features a tech demo that introduces the novel tactile sensing technology targeting the next generation of soft robotic skins.

Design

The sensing technique is based on a camera that tracks fluorescent particles, which are densely and randomly distributed within a soft, deformable gel. The randomness of the patterns simplifies production of the gel and their density provides strain information at each pixel of the resulting image. In addition, the technique does not make any assumption about the shape of the sensing surface, which can exhibit an arbitrary geometry.

Data Processing

While the images capturing the particles’ motion are intuitive and to some extent visually interpretable, the extraction of accurate physical quantities is challenging. In order to overcome the complexity of modeling the behavior of soft materials in real-time, the information extracted from the images is mapped to the distribution of the applied (shear and pressure) contact forces in a data-driven fashion. Specifically, a neural network is employed, which is trained entirely via accurate finite-element simulations to extract the aforementioned mapping.

Applications

This technology has the potential to impact several application fields, the obvious one being robotic manipulation. In a recent proof-of-concept, we have demonstrated how highly dynamic manipulation tasks can be achieved via the sole use of tactile sensing, as shown in the video below.

In addition, the versatility of this approach makes it suitable for various products beyond the robotics domain. In fact, an artificial sense of touch may find applications in smart prosthetic systems, with the potential to restore tactile sensations to people who have lost limbs.

Energy efficiency is an increasingly prominent concern as electronics adoption and environmental consciousness both rise. Robotics must consume less energy to sustain their growth in the future.

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China has developed a soft robot that can successfully swim in the Mariana Trench. In their paper published in the journal Nature,, the group describes their soft robot and its capabilities. Cecilia Laschi and Marcello Calisti with the National University of Singapore and the University of Lincoln, respectively, have published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team in China.

A University of Texas at Dallas research group has developed an autonomous robotic team of devices that can be used at hazardous or difficult-to-reach sites to make surveys and collect data—providing more and faster insights than human beings are able to deliver.

Healthcare has a long way to go before it reaches the level of digitalisation the manufacturing industry possesses. However, this slower pace doesn’t mean digitalisation isn’t already beginning to show its benefits in the medical sector.

The reddit r/robotics subreddit is a global online community of 138,000 users, ranging from hobbyists and students to academics and industry professionals. This year, we have invited our community to share their work as part of an online showcase. No matter how big or small, all projects are welcome, and a work in progress is valid. The showcase is as much about people sharing their robotics experiences as their projects, hence this is not a formal conference or symposium.

The showcase date is planned for the weekend of July 31st. On the day, successful applicants will join a video call on the official discord and to give a brief presentation (5 or 10mins) about their work, followed by a short question and answer session. Presentations will be livestreamed To Robohub’s YouTube channel, to allow for larger audience participation, and to create a publication (arXiv) of the showcase, available for everyone. If you would like to find out more about the event, click here.

So with that being said, we are looking for potential keynote speakers, to give a 20-40 minutes public friendly presentation, followed by a Q&A. It could be of your own research, or an overview of the research lab of business that you work for.

If you are interested in giving a keynote presentation, please email Olly Smith at olly.smith1994@gmail.com

What is Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), what are the most popular methods, where and how can it be applied

An introduction to JAX, its best features alongside with code snippets for you to get started

Imagine a robot.

There’s a misconception that industrial robots are reserved for manufacturing giants. But, according to the Robotics Industries Association (RIA), more enterprises with fewer than 100 employees now own up to ten robots — and this is a growing trend.

The difference between robotics and automation is almost nonexistent and yet has a huge difference in everything from trade shows, marketing, publications to academic conferences and journals. This week, the difference was expressed as an opportunity in the Dear Colleague Letter below from Professor Ken Goldberg, CITRIS CPAR and UC Berkeley, who suggested that students whose papers were rejected from ICRA, revise them for CASE, the Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. This opportunity was expressed beautifully in the title quote from Professor Raja Chatila, ex President of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and current President of IEEE Global Society on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. “One robot on Mars is robotics, ten robots on Mars is automation.”

Dear Colleagues,

Over 2000 papers were declined by ICRA today, including many that can be
effectively revised for another conference such as IEEE CASE (deadline 15
March).

IEEE CASE, the annual Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, is
a major IEEE conference that is one of three fully-supported IEEE
conferences in our field (with ICRA and IROS).

In 2021 CASE will be held 23-27 August.  It will be hybrid, with a live
component in Lyon France and an online component:
https://case2021.sciencesconf.org/

IEEE CASE was founded in 2006 so is smaller but growing quickly.  The
acceptance rate for the last CASE was about 56%, higher than ICRA 2021
(48%), IROS, or RSS.  I consider this a feature not a bug: it is an
excellent venue for exploratory and novel projects.

IEEE CASE continues the classic conference model of featuring a 10-15 min
oral presentation of each paper in contrast to poster sessions.  This is
particularly exciting for students, who get the valuable experience of
lecturing and fielding questions in front of an audience of peers.

IEEE CASE also has a tradition of spotlighting papers nominated for awards
such as Best Paper, Best Student Paper, etc.  Each nominated paper is
presented in special single session track on Day 1, where everyone at the
conference attends and there is a lively Q&A led by judges.

IEEE CASE emphasizes Automation.  Automation is very closely related to
Robotics. There is substantial overlap, but Automation emphasizes
efficiency, robustness, durability, safety, cost effectiveness. Automation
also includes topics such as optimization and applications such as
transportation and mfg. I like how RAS President Raj Chatila summed up the
relationship 10 years ago: “One robot on Mars is robotics, ten robots on
Mars is automation.”

In China there are over 100 university departments
focused on Automation.  The impact factor for the IEEE Transactions on
Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) this year is on par with T-RO
and higher than IJRR. Automation is important to put robotics into
practice.

Ken Goldberg

Professor, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research

William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering, UC Berkeley

Director, CITRIS People and Robots Lab

 

A technological and biological development that is unprecedented in Israel and the world has been achieved at Tel Aviv University. For the first time, the ear of a dead locust has been connected to a robot that receives the ear's electrical signals and responds accordingly. The result is extraordinary: When the researchers clap once, the locust's ear hears the sound and the robot moves forward; when the researchers clap twice, the robot moves backwards.

Researchers from Skoltech's Intelligent Space Robotics Lab have proposed a novel method for customer behavior analytics and demand distribution based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) stocktaking. Their research was published in the proceedings of the International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV).

If you've ever swatted a mosquito away from your face, only to have it return again (and again and again), you know that insects can be remarkably acrobatic and resilient in flight. Those traits help them navigate the aerial world, with all of its wind gusts, obstacles, and general uncertainty. Such traits are also hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has built a system that approaches insects' agility.

If we’re learning anything from 5G implementations, it’s that the demand for connectivity is increasing at an exponential rate as wireless communication is becoming more and more essential to our daily lives.