In order to handle adhesive foils, fabrics and other soft materials, dexterity and a good eye-hand coordination is needed. Robots do not yet have these skills.
In a joint research project with the University of Technology Vienna (TU Wien), Tobias Glück and Andreas Kugi from the AIT Center for Vision, Automation & Control and Christian Hartl-Nesic from the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN / TU Wien) are teaching robots how to handle flexible materials. The machines learn to recognise the object and its shapes as well as to estimate the environment and the path to the object. Finally they apply the material to the object. Despite gravity, which deforms the soft material uncontrollably, the robots are able to do the task precisely.
But robots cannot solve all tasks independently. Therefore, in the future, robots and humans will also work together as a team.
The work of the scientists is very well received in the international scientific community, as confirmed by the Mechatronics Paper Prize Award 202 for a paper in the journal Mechatronics in 2018 and the recent publication in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
For more information please visit our press release
Videos at the ACIN / TU Wien:
Der beklebte Hase: https://www.acin.tuwien.ac.at/52f5/
Zusammenarbeit von Mensch und Maschine beim Aufkleben eines Klebestreifens: https://www.acin.tuwien.ac.at/8a25/
Contact
Dr. Tobias Glück
Head of Competence UnitComplex Dynamical Systems
Center VAC