Manipulation of Deformable Linear Objects Using Dynamic Affine Curvature Modelling

In robotic manipulation of deformable objects, the continuum nature of the object state leads to prohibitively high degrees of freedom when traditional modelling techniques are applied, leading to much research focusing on approaches that avoid an explicit object model. However, without such a model the opportunities for long horizon planning...

Grasp recognition with spatiotemporal deep learning and proximity sensors in transradial prostheses

The traumatic loss of a hand is a horrific experience usually followed by significant psychological, functional and rehabilitation challenges. Even though much progress has been made in the past decades, the prosthetic challenge of restoring the human hand functionality is still far from being achieved. Autonomous prosthetic hands showed...

Towards the Development of a Passive Adaptive Variable Stiffness Exosuit

A substantial portion of workplace-related injuries stem from sprains, strains, and muscle tears, with a significant proportion occurring in the upper body, particularly the<br/>shoulder. To address these issues, there is a growing interest in utilizing supportive devices like exoskeletons that often face challenges such as bulkiness, high costs...

Pushing with a quadrupedal robot: A proof of concept regarding stable pushing by a quadrupedal robot

Quadrupedal robots possess the ability to move freely in the world and perform a variety of actions that would be unsafe or impractical for humans to perform. In the SNOW project, a quadrupedal robot is tasked with aiding firefighters in rescue missions during house fires by locating humans and assessing their health. Pushing away obstacles that...

Improving model-based control of a soft robot via gaussian process regression

Soft robots have the potential to accelerate robotiza- tion in areas that are complex and impractical for hard robots. The use of soft materials results in a safe and flexible design that is unattainable for hard robots. However, this attribute results in the need for new control approaches and strategies. Hybrid controllers are a relative...

Robotic Packaging Optimization with Reinforcement Learning and Real-World Data

Intelligent manufacturing has become increasingly important in the food packaging industry due to the growing demand for enhanced productivity and flexibility while minimizing waste and lead times. This work explores the integration of such manufacturing in automated secondary robotic food packaging solutions that transfer food products into...

SLIP-based Iterative Learning for Efficient and Compliant Locomotion of Articulated Soft Quadrupeds

Effectively controlling and exploiting the natural dynamics of Articulated Soft Robots for energy-efficient motions remains challenging. In literature, the problem is often split in two; in energy-efficient motion planning and structure-preserving control, where the focus is on one, and the other is largely disregarded. This work aims to unify...

Forecasting of SARS-Cov-2 Infections within Dutch Municipalities using Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks

This paper presents a novel approach to regional forecasting of SARS-Cov-2 infections one week ahead, which involves developing a municipality level COVID-19 dataset of the Netherlands and using a spatio-temporal graph neural network (GNN) to predict the number of infections. The developed model captures the spread of infectious diseases within...

Learning dynamic models of soft manipulators via physics-inspired neural networks

Soft robots are made of compliant materials, which increase their flexibility but also presents modeling challenges. The difficulty mainly comes from material nonlinearity, infinite degrees of freedom, uncertain parameters, and complex calculations. This project uses physics-inspired neural networks to solve the last two problems. Based on the...

Robotic gripper for calli transfer: The design and development of a robotic gripper to automate calli transfer to improve the quality and quantity of plant regeneration

During the transfer of calli in plant regeneration, the repetitive work of pick and placement of calli in new agar is still done by human operators. This process can be automated to eliminate labour-intensive work. The thesis focuses on the development of a robotic gripper to automate the transfer of calli. To be able to grip calli, first its...

Novel Twisting-Tube Gripper: Design and Evaluation for Blackberries

Fruit and vegetable production is increasing worldwide, and farmers currently face a tough challenge in finding enough agricultural workers. Automation of the labour-intensive task of crop harvesting could help fill in this gap between supply and demand. However, picking soft fruits is challenging, as they can be easily damaged if not carefully...

Functional Iterative Learning Control With Full State Feedback Control of a Flexible Link Robot Actuated With a Stepper Motor

Advantages of lightweight design robot links include cost savings and reduced energy consumption. The flexibility introduced by the lightweight design can cause structural vibrations decreasing precision. To mitigate this, an advanced controller is proposed, consisting of Iterative Learning Control combined with Full State Feedback control. To...

Synergies-Based Teleoperation of a Robot Hand by a Hand Tracking System

Hand pose tracking in 3D configuration is one of the popular components of human-computer interaction research, which can be seen applying in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Although the research field has been thoroughly studied in the past few decades, most methods emphasized recognizing hand gestures or joint locations....

A Gripper for Deformable and Delicate Objects at High Acceleration Using a Contact-Reactive Grasping Approach

Introduction: This research aims to develop a gripper that is capable of handling deformable and delicate objects at high acceleration (≥10 G) using a contact-reactive grasping approach while moving. Commercial grippers are already suitable for handling various food products at high speed and acceleration when combined with a parallel...

Single Shot Learning of the Stiffness Distribution of a Soft Object

With robotics rapidly expanding towards new user-oriented applications, such as agriculture, households, and classrooms, new tasks and new requirements arise. One of the ongoing and unsolved problems that comes with the unpredictable new environments robots find themselves in, is soft object manipulation. Without assuming the handled object to...

Design and Cartesian stiffness control for soft manipulators

Many interesting designs of soft robots with variablestiffness capabilities have been presented in the literature. However, little attention has been given on the control of their embedded physical intelligence. In this work, we present an algorithm that exploits the variablejoint stiffness capabilities and the redundancy of a soft manipulator...