Robust robotic grasping using IR Net-Structure Proximity Sensor to handle objects with unknown position and attitude

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on unknown parameters such as the position and attitude of the object, and describe a short-range, high-speed and noncontact sensing method for obtaining the position and attitude of the object using IR Net-Structure Proximity Sensor (“IR-NSPS”) which complements the dead region of sensory information between visual and tactile sensing. To be more precise, we propose two effective control methods which are pre-shaping and object positioning using IR-NSPS for robust grasping by adjusting the gripper configuration in response to attitude error of up to ±45 deg and the position error of up to ±80 mm of the unknown object. The methods therefore can significantly increase the speed and effectiveness of grasping objects without requiring a specific approach that depends on a vision sensor. Furthermore, to demonstrate the advantages of pre-shaping and object positioning, object grasping experiments were performed using these two operations to grasp objects placed randomly on a tabletop.