Electroadhesion [1] is the electrostatic effect of astriction between two surfaces subjected to an electrical field. Applications include the retention of paper on plotter surfaces, astrictive robotic prehension (electrostatic grippers), electroadhesive displays, [2] etc. Clamping pressures in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 N/cm2 (0.8 to 2.3 psi) have been claimed. [3] Currently, the maximum lateral pressure achievable through electroadhesion is 85.6 N/cm2. [4]
An electroadhesive pad consists of conductive electrodes placed upon a polymer substrate. When alternate positive and negative charges are induced on adjacent electrodes, the resulting electric field sets up opposite charges on the surface that the pad touches, and thus causes electrostatic adhesion between the electrodes and the induced charges in the touched surface material. [5]
Electroadhesion can be loosely divided into two basic forms: that which concerns the prehension of electrically conducting materials where the general laws of capacitance hold (D = E ε) and that used with electrically insulating subjects where the more advanced theory of electrostatics (D = E ε + P) applies. [6] In practice, surface irregularities such as waviness, wrinkles, and roughness introduce air gaps. Some models account for these effects by incorporating a layer that represents these air gaps. [7]
Recently, electroadhesion has been garnering increasing attention from both academia and industry. It is being proposed for application in various fields, including gripping devices, [8] climbing robots, [9] VR haptics, [10] and variable stiffness mechanisms. [11]
Microbotics is the field of miniature robotics, in particular mobile robots with characteristic dimensions less than 1 mm. The term can also be used for robots capable of handling micrometer size components.
Haptic technology is technology that can create an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. These technologies can be used to create virtual objects in a computer simulation, to control virtual objects, and to enhance remote control of machines and devices (telerobotics). Haptic devices may incorporate tactile sensors that measure forces exerted by the user on the interface. The word haptic, from the ‹See Tfd›Greek: ἁπτικός (haptikos), means "tactile, pertaining to the sense of touch". Simple haptic devices are common in the form of game controllers, joysticks, and steering wheels.
Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an agent's location within it. While this initially appears to be a chicken or the egg problem, there are several algorithms known to solve it in, at least approximately, tractable time for certain environments. Popular approximate solution methods include the particle filter, extended Kalman filter, covariance intersection, and GraphSLAM. SLAM algorithms are based on concepts in computational geometry and computer vision, and are used in robot navigation, robotic mapping and odometry for virtual reality or augmented reality.
Dario Floreano is a Swiss-Italian roboticist and engineer. He is Director of the Laboratory of Intelligent System (LIS) at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and was the founding director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics.
Electrorheological (ER) fluids are suspensions of extremely fine non-conducting but electrically active particles in an electrically insulating fluid. The apparent viscosity of these fluids changes reversibly by an order of up to 100,000 in response to an electric field. For example, a typical ER fluid can go from the consistency of a liquid to that of a gel, and back, with response times on the order of milliseconds. The effect is sometimes called the Winslow effect after its discoverer, the American inventor Willis Winslow, who obtained a US patent on the effect in 1947 and wrote an article published in 1949.
A virtual fixture is an overlay of augmented sensory information upon a user's perception of a real environment in order to improve human performance in both direct and remotely manipulated tasks. Developed in the early 1990s by Louis Rosenberg at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Virtual Fixtures was a pioneering platform in virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
A spherical robot, also known as spherical mobile robot, or ball-shaped robot is a mobile robot with spherical external shape. A spherical robot is typically made of a spherical shell serving as the body of the robot and an internal driving unit (IDU) that enables the robot to move. Spherical mobile robots typically move by rolling over surfaces. The rolling motion is commonly performed by changing the robot's center of mass, but there exist some other driving mechanisms. In a wider sense, however, the term "spherical robot" may also be referred to a stationary robot with two rotary joints and one prismatic joint which forms a spherical coordinate system.
Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots.
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society is a professional society of the IEEE that supports the development and the exchange of scientific knowledge in the fields of robotics and automation, including applied and theoretical issues.
An end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot.
In robotics and motion planning, a velocity obstacle, commonly abbreviated VO, is the set of all velocities of a robot that will result in a collision with another robot at some moment in time, assuming that the other robot maintains its current velocity. If the robot chooses a velocity inside the velocity obstacle then the two robots will eventually collide, if it chooses a velocity outside the velocity obstacle, such a collision is guaranteed not to occur.
A tactile sensor is a device that measures information arising from physical interaction with its environment. Tactile sensors are generally modeled after the biological sense of cutaneous touch which is capable of detecting stimuli resulting from mechanical stimulation, temperature, and pain. Tactile sensors are used in robotics, computer hardware and security systems. A common application of tactile sensors is in touchscreen devices on mobile phones and computing.
Nanosensors Inc. is a company that manufactures probes for use in atomic force microscopes (AFM) and scanning probe microscopes (SPM). This private, for profit company was founded November 21, 2018. Nanosensors Inc. is located in Neuchatel, Switzerland.
Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real-world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots that are inspired by biological systems, including Biomimicry. Biomimicry is copying from nature while bio-inspired design is learning from nature and making a mechanism that is simpler and more effective than the system observed in nature. Biomimicry has led to the development of a different branch of robotics called soft robotics. The biological systems have been optimized for specific tasks according to their habitat. However, they are multifunctional and are not designed for only one specific functionality. Bio-inspired robotics is about studying biological systems, and looking for the mechanisms that may solve a problem in the engineering field. The designer should then try to simplify and enhance that mechanism for the specific task of interest. Bio-inspired roboticists are usually interested in biosensors, bioactuators, or biomaterials. Most of the robots have some type of locomotion system. Thus, in this article different modes of animal locomotion and few examples of the corresponding bio-inspired robots are introduced.
The TreadPort Active Wind Tunnel is a unique immersive virtual environment that integrates locomotion interfaces with sensory cues such as visual, auditory, olfactory, radiant heat and wind display. The TPAWT augments the Sarcos Treadport consisting of the Cave automatic virtual environment(CAVE) with a subsonic wind tunnel built around the user environment, and adds wind to the virtual environment. The Treadport Active Wind Tunnel is one of the first virtual environments to include wind into the sensory experience of the user. Other systems considering wind display, directly use fans.
Tendon-driven robots (TDR) are robots whose limbs mimic biological musculoskeletal systems. They use plastic straps to mimic muscles and tendons. Such robots are claimed to move in a "more natural" way than traditional robots that use rigid metal or plastic limbs controlled by geared actuators. TDRs can also help understand how biomechanics relates to embodied intelligence and cognition.
Nanoprobing is method of extracting device electrical parameters through the use of nanoscale tungsten wires, used primarily in the semiconductor industry. The characterization of individual devices is instrumental to engineers and integrated circuit designers during initial product development and debug. It is commonly utilized in device failure analysis laboratories to aid with yield enhancement, quality and reliability issues and customer returns. Commercially available nanoprobing systems are integrated into either a vacuum-based scanning electron microscope (SEM) or atomic force microscope (AFM). Nanoprobing systems that are based on AFM technology are referred to as Atomic Force nanoProbers (AFP).
Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics that concerns the design, control, and fabrication of robots composed of compliant materials, instead of rigid links. In contrast to rigid-bodied robots built from metals, ceramics and hard plastics, the compliance of soft robots can improve their safety when working in close contact with humans.
Domenico Prattichizzo is an Italian scientist with a strong and international recognized expertise in the fields of Haptics, Robotics and, Wearable technology. His researches find their main applications in virtual and augmented reality scenarios and in the rehabilitation of people with upper and lower limbs, visual and cognitive impairments.
Vivian Chu is an American roboticist and entrepreneur, specializing in the field of human-robot interaction. She is Chief Technology Officer at Diligent Robotics, a company she co-founded in 2017 for creating autonomous, mobile, socially intelligent robots.
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