Soft-fingered Manipulation Heads: Shinichi Hirai Contact: Takahiro Inoue Date: 2001 - Mailing address: Dept. Robotics, Ritsumeikan Univ. Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan Supported by: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No.20246049) 2008 - 2010 (Shinichi Hirai) Soft Tissue Mechanics in Human Dexterity via Internal Sensing Associated lab/group: Sugiyama Lab.(Dept. Micro System Technology)

Project Description

The goal of this research is to perform dexterous and stable object manipulation using soft-fingered mechanical hands. The location of a manipulated object measured by a realtime vision system and the grasping force measured by a tactile sensor are fedback to the hand motion to realize stable grasping and manipulation. We are interested in the modeling of soft fingertips and the control law for grasping and manipulation.

2009/12/21	Yujiro Yamazaki was nominated to Finalist of 2009 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics Best Paper in Biomimetics by Two-Phased Force and Coordinates Controller for a Pair of 2-DOF Soft Fingers.
2009/1/1	Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation (ISBN 978-1-84800-980-6) was published by Springer-Verlag London Limited.
2008/9/10	Dr. Inoue and Hirai received the 2008 RSJ Best Paper Award for their paper Experimental Investigation of Mechanics in Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.
2008/9/10	Dr. Inoue received the 2008 Young Investigation Excellence Award for his paper A New Object Orientation Control Method Generating Desired Joint Angles.
2008/9/8	Dr. Inoue received Best Presentation Award at the 2008 JSPE Intelligent Mechatronics Workshop.
2008/4/14	Proposal for Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research "Soft Tissue Mechanics in Human Dexterity via Internal Sensing" was accepted. (HP)
2007/12/21	Dr. Inoue and Hirai received SICE 2007 SI Division Research Encouragement Award.
2007/3/15	Dr. Inoue and Prof. Hirai received the Best Paper Award in the 12th Robotics Symposia for their paper Dynamics in Object Manipulation by a Pair of Spft Fingertips. (HP)
2006/5/17	Takahiro Inoue was nominated to Finalist of 2006 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation Best Manipulation Paper Award by Study on Hemispherical Soft-Fingered Handling for Fine Manipulation by Minimum D.O.F. Robotic Hand.
2005/12/22	Takahiro Inoue received IEEE Kansai Chapter Student Encouragement Award.
2005/4/20	Takahiro Inoue was nominated to Finalist of 2005 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation Best Manipulation Paper Award by Quasi-Static Manipulation with Hemispherical Soft Fingertip via Two Rotational Fingers.
2004/12/7	Lecture on How Softness Contributes to Dexterity in Object Manipulation at the startup meeting of soft object handling research group, Kagawa University.
2003/4/10	Project on soft-fingered manipulation was introduced in a Japanese book Coming Astro Boy (ISBN4-410-13828-6).
2001/7/4	Introduced in Yomiuri Shimbun 2001/7/4 "Scientist in new generation".

Grasping force control by a pair of 1-DOF fingers

Posture control by a pair of 1-DOF fingers

Personnel

	Name	Title	Degree
	Damith Suresh Chathuranga	University of Moratuwa	Ph. D in Engineering
	Takahiro Inoue	"Associate Professor, Tokyo Denki University"	Ph.D
	Yuki Mimori	D3
	Daisuke Mochizuki	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Junichi Ishikawa	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Yasutaka Nakatani	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Hiroaki Uemoto	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Yujiro Yamazaki	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Yasuo Minamitani	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Ikuo Fujii	Graduated	Master of Eng.
	Kenta Okada	Graduated
	Shinya Kita	Graduated

Publications

• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation, ISBN 978-1-84800-980-6, Springer, 10.1007/978-1-84800-981-3, 2009

• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Why Humans can Manipulate Objects Despite a Time Delay in the Nervous System, Ravi Balasubramanian and Veronica J. Santos eds., The Human Hand as an Inspiration for Robot Hand Development, 978-3-319-03016-6, Springer International Publishing, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics 95, pp.289-313, 10.1007/978-3-319-03017-3_14, 2014
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Experimental Investigation of Mechanics in Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation, Oussama Khatib, Vijay Kumar, and Daniela Rus eds., Experimental Robotics X, 978-3-540-77456-3, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics 39, pp.13-22, 10.1007/978-3-540-77457-0_2, 2008

• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Elastic Model of Deformable Fingertip for Soft-Fingered Manipulation, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol.22, No.6, pp.1273-1279, 10.1109/TRO.2006.886274, Dec., 2006

• Yujiro Yamazaki, Takahiro Inoue, and Shinichi Hirai, Two-Phased Controller for a Pair of 2-DOF Soft Fingertips Based on the Qualitative Relationship between Joint Angles and Object Location, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.4294-4301, 10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509253, Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A., May 3-8, 2010
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Robotic Manipulation with Large Time Delay on Visual Feedback Systems, IEEE/ASME Int. Conf. on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2010), pp.1111-1115, 10.1109/AIM.2010.5695912, Montreal, Canada, July 7-9, 2010
• Takaniro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Parallel-distributed Model of Soft Fingertips in Three-dimensional Grasping and Manipulation, IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics (Robio 2008), pp.895-902, 10.1109/ROBIO.2009.4913118, Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 21-26, 2009
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Parallel-distributed Model in Three-dimensional Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.2092-2097, 10.1109/ROBOT.2009.5152451, Kobe, Japan, May 12-17, 2009
• Yujiro Yamazaki, Takaihro Inoue, and Shinichi Hirai, Two-Phased Force and Coordinates Controller for a Pair of 2-DOF Soft Fingers, IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics (Robio 2009), pp.931-937, 10.1109/ROBIO.2009.5420495, Guilin, China, Dec. 19-23, 2009   Finalist of 2009 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics Best Paper in Biomimetics
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Task-selection Control by Thumb and Forefinger Based on Softfinger Contact, Third Asia International Symposium on Mechatronics (AISM2008), Sapporo, Japan, Aug. 27-31, 2008
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Dynamic Stable Manipulation via Soft-Fingered Hand, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.586-591, 10.1109/ROBOT.2007.363050, Rome, Italy, Apr. 10-14, 2007
• Takaniro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, How Hemispherical Soft Fingertips Enhance Dexterity in Grasping and Manipulation, Workshop on Contact Interface in Robotic Manipulation: Modeling and Application, IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Rome, Italy, Apr. 10-14, 2007
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Stable Manipulation Mechanisms on Soft Fingers, 2007 IEEE/ASME Int. Conf. on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2007), 10.1109/AIM.2007.4412407, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Sept. 4-7, 2007
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, A Two-Phased Object Orientation Controller on Soft Finger Operations, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp.2528-2533, 10.1109/IROS.2007.4399136, San Diego, CA, U.S.A., Oct. 29 - Nov. 2, 2007
• Takaniro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Two-stage Control via Virtual Desired Values in Soft-fingered Manipulation with Time Delay, IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics (Robio 2007), pp.577-583, 10.1109/ROBIO.2007.4522226, Sanya, China, Dec. 15-18, 2007
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Study on Hemispherical Soft-Fingered Handling for Fine Manipulation by Minimum D.O.F. Robotic Hand, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.2454-2459, 10.1109/ROBOT.2006.1642070, Orlando, FL, U.S.A., May 15-19, 2006   Finalist of 2006 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation Manipulation Best Paper Award
• Takaniro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Experimental Investigation of Mechanics in Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation, Proc. Int. Symp. on Experimental Robotics (ISER2006), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 6-10, 2006
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Quasi-Static Manipulation with Hemispherical Soft Fingertip via Two Rotational Fingers, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.1935-1940, 10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570396, Barcelona, Spain, Apr. 18-22, 2005   Finalist of 2005 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation Manipulation Best Paper Award
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Local Minimum of Elastic Potential Energy on Hemispherical Soft Fingertip, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.2308-2313, 10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570457, Barcelona, Spain, Apr. 18-22, 2005
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Rotational Contact Model of Soft Fingertip for Tactile Sensing, Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol.3, pp.2957-2962, 10.1109/ROBOT.2004.1307510, New Orleans, LA, U.S.A., Apr. 26 - May 1, 2004
• Takahiro Inoue and Shinichi Hirai, Modeling of Soft Fingertip for Object Manipulation Using Tactile Sensing, Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Vol.3, pp.2654-2659, 10.1109/IROS.2003.1249271, Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A., Oct. 27-31, 2003

Notes

Album	Non-spherical soft fingertips (avi 2.9MB)	Manipulation by a pair of 2-DOF fingers (mpg 13.4MB)	Simulating manipulation by a pair of 2-DOF fingers (avi 7.9MB)	Simulating manipulation by a pair of 1-DOF fingers (mpg 9.0MB)
Natural stability of grasped object (mov 9.5MB)

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