A Bimanual Robotic Teleoperation Architecture with Anthropomorphic Hybrid Grippers for Unstructured Manipulation Tasks

Abstract

Bimanual telemanipulation is vital for facilitating robots to complete complex and dexterous tasks that involve two handheld objects under teleoperation scenarios. However, the bimanual configuration introduces higher complexity, dynamics, and uncertainty, especially in those uncontrolled and unstructured environments, which require more advanced system integration. This paper presents a bimanual robotic teleoperation architecture with modular anthropomorphic hybrid grippers for the purpose of improving the telemanipulation capability under unstructured environments. Generally, there are two teleoperated subsystems within this architecture. The first one is the Leap Motion Controller and the anthropomorphic hybrid robotic grippers. Two 3D printed anthropomorphic hybrid robotic grippers with modular joints and soft layer augmentations are designed, fabricated, and equipped for telemanipulation tasks. A Leap Motion Controller is used to track the motion of two human hands, while each hand is utilized to teleoperate one robotic gripper. The second one is the haptic devices and the robotic arms. Two haptic devices are adopted as the master devices while each of them takes responsibility for one arm control. Based on such a framework, an average RMSE (root-mean-square-error) value of 0.0204 rad is obtained in joint tracking. Nine sign-language demonstrations and twelve object grasping tasks were conducted with the robotic gripper teleoperation. A challenging bimanual manipulation task for an object with 5.2 kg was well addressed using the integrated teleoperation system. Experimental results show that the proposed bimanual teleoperation system can effectively handle typical manipulation tasks, with excellent adaptabilities for a wide range of shapes, sizes, and weights, as well as grasping modes.

Teleoperated Grasping Using Data Gloves Based on Fuzzy Logic Controller

“…Operators transmit commands to the robot through the handle and simultaneously receive the interaction information from the robot's interaction with the external environment. Zhu et al [17] designed a dual manipulator robotic teleoperation system structure equipped with modular hybrid grippers. Its master end was composed of two Geomagic Touches and one leap motion controller, while the slave end encompassed two mechanical arms fitted with two grippers.…”

An Adaptive Hand exoskeleton for Teleoperation System

“…Thus, it is widely applied to surgical robots, drones, unmanned vehicles, and other fields [1]. For high-risk environments with complex manipulating scenarios, such as bomb demolition, dangerous goods disposal, oil, and gas valve operation, it is necessary to have a humanoid five-fingered dexterous slave hand with flexible operational capabilities such as screwing, pushing, pulling, and pressing [2]. Therefore, the exoskeleton master hand is expected to be worn by humans to acquire agile motion.…”

Modeling of a Soft-Rigid Gripper Actuated by a Linear-Extension Soft Pneumatic Actuator

“…To resolve the above issues, an increasing number of researchers have turned their attention to soft grippers, which have promising advantages with excellent flexibility [ 8 ], high environmental adaptability [ 9 ], man–machine safety [ 10 ], and low manufacturing cost as well as easy manipulation [ 11 , 12 ]. Compared to the soft actuators, such as those that are tendon driven using cables or shape memory alloy [ 13 , 14 ], electrically driven using electroactive polymers [ 15 , 16 ], or thermally driven using hydrogels [ 17 , 18 ], soft pneumatic actuators are widely used.…”