{"title":"Compact Modular Robotic Wrist With Variable Stiffness Capability","authors":"Hyunsoo Sun;Sungwoo Park;Donghyun Hwang","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492453","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492453","url":null,"abstract":"We have developed a two-degree-of-freedom robotic wrist with variable stiffness capability, designed for situations where collisions between the end-effector and the environment are inevitable. To enhance environmental adaptability and prevent physical damage, the wrist can operate in a low-stiffness mode. However, the flexibility of this mode might negatively impact stable and precise manipulation. To address this, we proposed a robotic wrist that switches between a passive low-stiffness mode for environmental adaptation and an active high-stiffness mode for precise manipulation. Initially, we developed a functional prototype that could manually switch between these modes, demonstrating the wrist's passive low-stiffness and active high-stiffness states. This prototype was designed as a lightweight, flat-type modular device, incorporating a sheet-type flexure as the motion guide and embedding all essential components, including actuators, sensors, and a control unit, into the wrist module. Based on the functional prototype, we developed an improved version to enhance durability and functionality. The resulting wrist module incorporates a three-axis force/torque sensor and an impedance control system to control the stiffness. It measures 55 mm in height, weighs 200 g, and offers a 232.4-fold active stiffness variation.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"141-158"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stability Criterion and Stability Enhancement for a Thruster-Assisted Underwater Hexapod Robot","authors":"Lepeng Chen;Rongxin Cui;Weisheng Yan;Chenguang Yang;Zhijun Li;Hui Xu;Haitao Yu","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492374","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492374","url":null,"abstract":"The stability criterion is critical for the design of legged robots' motion planning and control algorithms. If these algorithms cannot theoretically ensure legged robots' stability, we need many trials to identify suitable parameters for stable locomotion. However, most existing stability criteria are tailored to robots driven solely by legs and cannot be applied to thruster-assisted legged robots. Here, we propose a stability criterion for a thruster-assisted underwater hexapod robot by finding maximum and minimum allowable thruster forces and comparing them with the current thrusts to check its stability. On this basis, we propose a method to increase the robot's stability margin by adjusting the value of thrusts. This process is called stability enhancement. The criterion uses the optimization method to transform multiple variables such as attitude, velocity, acceleration of the robot body, and the angle and angular velocity of leg joints into one kind of variable (thrust) to judge the stability directly. In addition, the stability enhancement method is straightforward to implement because it only needs to adjust the thrusts. These provide insights into how multiclass forces such as inertia force, fluid force, thrust, gravity, and buoyancy affect the robot's stability.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"42-61"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Topo-Geometrically Distinct Path Computation Using Neighborhood-Augmented Graph, and Its Application to Path Planning for a Tethered Robot in 3-D","authors":"Alp Sahin;Subhrajit Bhattacharya","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492386","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492386","url":null,"abstract":"Many robotics applications benefit from being able to compute multiple geodesic paths in a given configuration space. Existing paradigm is to use topological path planning, which can compute optimal paths in distinct topological classes. However, these methods usually require nontrivial geometric constructions, which are prohibitively expensive in 3-D, and are unable to distinguish between distinct topologically equivalent geodesics that are created due to high-cost/curvature regions or prismatic obstacles in 3-D. In this article, we propose an approach to compute \u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$k$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000 geodesic paths using the concept of a novel neighborhood-augmented graph, on which graph search algorithms can compute multiple optimal paths that are topo-geometrically distinct. Our approach does not require complex geometric constructions, and the resulting paths are not restricted to distinct topological classes, making the algorithm suitable for problems where finding and distinguishing between geodesic paths are of interest. We demonstrate the application of our algorithm to planning shortest traversible paths for a tethered robot in 3-D with cable-length constraint.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"20-41"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10746348","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Coordinated Approach to Control Mechanical and Computing Resources in Mobile Robots","authors":"Sajad Shahsavari;Hashem Haghbayan;Antonio Miele;Eero Immonen;Juha Plosila","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492345","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492345","url":null,"abstract":"Energy management of mechanical and cyber parts in mobile robots consists of two processes operating concurrently at runtime. Both the two processes can significantly improve the robots' battery lifetime and further extend mission time. In each process, information on energy consumption of one of the two parts is captured and analyzed to manipulate various mechanical/computational actuators in a robot, such as motor speed and CPU voltage/frequency. In this article, we show that considering management of mechanical and computational segments separately does not necessarily result in an energy-optimal solution due to their co-dependence; as a consequence, a runtime co-management scheme is required. We propose a proactive energy optimization methodology in which dynamically trained internal models are utilized to predict the future energy consumption for the mechanical and computational parts of a mobile robot, and based on that, the optimal mechanical speed and CPU voltage/frequency are determined at runtime. The experimental results on a ground wheeled robot show up to 36.34% reduction in the overall energy consumption compared to the state-of-the-art methods.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"347-363"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10746315","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Lower Limb Wearable Exosuit for Improved Sitting, Standing, and Walking Efficiency","authors":"Xiaohui Zhang;Enrica Tricomi;Xunju Ma;Manuela Gomez-Correa;Alessandro Ciaramella;Francesco Missiroli;Luka Mišković;Huimin Su;Lorenzo Masia","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492452","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3492452","url":null,"abstract":"Sitting, standing, and walking are fundamental activities crucial for maintaining independence in daily life. However, aging or lower limb injuries can impede these activities, posing obstacles to individuals' autonomy. In response to this challenge, we developed the LM-Ease (lower-limb movement ease), a compact and soft wearable robot designed to provide hip assistance. Its purpose is to aid users in carrying out essential daily activities such as sitting, standing, and walking. The LM-Ease features a fully actuated tendon-driven system that seamlessly transitions between assistance actuation profiles tailored for sitting, standing, and walking movements. This device provides the user with gravity support during stand-to-sit, and offers hip extension assistance pulling force during sit-to-stand and walking. Our preliminary results show that with the LM-Ease, healthy young adults (\u0000<italic>n</i>\u0000 \u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$=$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000 8) had significantly lower muscle activation: average reduction of 15.6% during stand-to-sit and 17.8% during sit-to-stand. Furthermore, with LM-Ease, participants demonstrated a 12.7% reduction in metabolic cost during ground walking. These evidences suggest that the LM-Ease holds potential in reducing muscular activation and energy expenditure during these fundamental daily activities. It could serve as a valuable tool for individuals seeking assistance in enhancing lower limb mobility, thereby bolstering their independence and overall quality of life.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"127-140"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142594761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Automatic Tissue Traction Using Miniature Force-Sensing Forceps for Minimally Invasive Surgery","authors":"Tangyou Liu;Xiaoyi Wang;Jay Katupitiya;Jiaole Wang;Liao Wu","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3486177","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3486177","url":null,"abstract":"A common limitation of autonomous tissue manipulation in robotic minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is the absence of force sensing and control at the tool level. Recently, our team has developed miniature force-sensing forceps that can simultaneously measure the grasping and pulling forces during tissue manipulation. Based on this design, here we further present a method to automate tissue traction that comprises grasping and pulling stages. During this process, the grasping and pulling forces can be controlled either separately or simultaneously through force decoupling. The force controller is built upon a static model of tissue manipulation, considering the interaction between the force-sensing forceps and soft tissue. The efficacy of this force control approach is validated through a series of experiments comparing targeted, estimated, and actual reference forces. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method in surgical applications, various tissue resections are conducted on ex vivo tissues employing a dual-arm robotic setup. Finally, we discuss the benefits of multiforce control in tissue traction, evidenced through comparative analyses of various ex vivo tissue resections with and without the proposed method, and the potential generalization with traction on different tissues. The results affirm the feasibility of implementing automatic tissue traction using miniature forceps with multiforce control, suggesting its potential to promote autonomous MIS.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"40 ","pages":"4690-4704"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142489484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Human–Robot Cooperative Piano Playing With Learning-Based Real-Time Music Accompaniment","authors":"Huijiang Wang;Xiaoping Zhang;Fumiya Iida","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484633","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484633","url":null,"abstract":"Recent advances in machine learning have paved the way for the development of musical and entertainment robots. However, human–robot cooperative instrument playing remains a challenge, particularly due to the intricate motor coordination and temporal synchronization. In this article, we propose a theoretical framework for human–robot cooperative piano playing based on nonverbal cues. First, we present a music improvisation model that employs a recurrent neural network (RNN) to predict appropriate chord progressions based on the human's melodic input. Second, we propose a behavior-adaptive controller to facilitate seamless temporal synchronization, allowing the cobot to generate harmonious acoustics. The collaboration takes into account the bidirectional information flow between the human and robot. We have developed an entropy-based system to assess the quality of cooperation by analyzing the impact of different communication modalities during human–robot collaboration. Experiments demonstrate that our RNN-based improvisation can achieve a 93% accuracy rate. Meanwhile, with the MPC adaptive controller, the robot could respond to the human teammate in homophony performances with real-time accompaniment. Our designed framework has been validated to be effective in allowing humans and robots to work collaboratively in the artistic piano-playing task.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"40 ","pages":"4650-4669"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yi Ting Sam;Erin Hedlund-Botti;Manisha Natarajan;Jamison Heard;Matthew Gombolay
{"title":"The Impact of Stress and Workload on Human Performance in Robot Teleoperation Tasks","authors":"Yi Ting Sam;Erin Hedlund-Botti;Manisha Natarajan;Jamison Heard;Matthew Gombolay","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484630","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484630","url":null,"abstract":"Advances in robot teleoperation have enabled groundbreaking innovations in many fields, such as space exploration, healthcare, and disaster relief. The human operator's performance plays a key role in the success of any teleoperation task, with prior evidence suggesting that operator stress and workload can impact task performance. As robot teleoperation is currently deployed in safety-critical domains, it is essential to analyze how different stress and workload levels impact the operator. We are unaware of any prior work investigating how both stress and workload impact teleoperation performance. We conducted a novel study (\u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$n=24$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000) to jointly manipulate users' stress and workload and analyze the user's performance through objective and subjective measures. Our results indicate that, as stress increased, over 70% of our participants performed better up to a moderate level of stress; yet, the majority of participants performed worse as the workload increased. Importantly, our experimental design elucidated that stress and workload have related yet distinct impacts on task performance, with workload mediating the effects of distress on performance (\u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$p< .05$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000).","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"40 ","pages":"4725-4744"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust and Dependence on Robotic Decision Support","authors":"Manisha Natarajan;Matthew Gombolay","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484628","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484628","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates people's trust and dependence on robotic decision support systems (DSSs), which provide cognitive assistance through suggestions. Robotic DSSs may not always offer optimal suggestions, requiring people to rely carefully to maximize performance. We analyze user reliance on suboptimal robots for solving instantaneous and sequential decision-making tasks with a math and card game, respectively. In instantaneous tasks, we find that the users' perceived anthropomorphism \u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$(p < . 001$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000) and the robot's behavior after a decision support failure (\u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$p < . 001$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000) significantly impact user trust. In a sequential task where the effectiveness of the human–robot team is not revealed until after several decisions, we find that introducing a user-initiated decision proposal before the robot reveals its recommendation can mitigate overreliance (\u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$p < . 05$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000) and users' task expertise is critical in determining appropriate dependence on the robot's suggestions (\u0000<inline-formula><tex-math>$p < . 01$</tex-math></inline-formula>\u0000). Combined, these studies are synergistic and the first to jointly examine the influence of various factors on user trust and dependence, offering guidance for designing robotic DSSs to maximize human–robot task performance.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"40 ","pages":"4670-4689"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sepehr Samavi;James R. Han;Florian Shkurti;Angela P. Schoellig
{"title":"SICNav: Safe and Interactive Crowd Navigation Using Model Predictive Control and Bilevel Optimization","authors":"Sepehr Samavi;James R. Han;Florian Shkurti;Angela P. Schoellig","doi":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484634","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TRO.2024.3484634","url":null,"abstract":"Robots need to predict and react to human motions to navigate through a crowd without collisions. Many existing methods decouple prediction from planning, which does not account for the interaction between robot and human motions and can lead to the robot getting stuck. In this article, we propose safe and interactive crowd navigation (SICNav), a model predictive control (MPC) method that \u0000<italic>jointly</i>\u0000 solves for robot motion and predicted crowd motion in closed loop. We model each human in the crowd to be following an optimal reciprocal collision avoidance (ORCA) scheme and embed that model as a constraint in the robot's local planner, resulting in a bilevel nonlinear MPC optimization problem. We use a Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT)-reformulation to cast the bilevel problem as a single level and use a nonlinear solver to optimize. Our MPC method can influence pedestrian motion while explicitly satisfying safety constraints in a single-robot multihuman environment. We analyze the performance of SICNav in two simulation environments and indoor experiments with a real robot to demonstrate safe robot motion that can influence the surrounding humans. We also validate the trajectory forecasting performance of ORCA on a human trajectory dataset.","PeriodicalId":50388,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Robotics","volume":"41 ","pages":"801-818"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}