Paper: Blind Manipulation of Deformable Objects Based on Force Sensing and Finite Element Modeling

Title: Blind Manipulation of Deformable Objects Based on Force Sensing and Finite Element Modeling
Author: Jose Sanchez, Kamal Mohy El Dine, Juan Antonio Corrales, Belhassen-Chedli Bouzgarrou and Youcef Mezouar
Journal: Frontiers in Robotics and AI. 09 June 2020. 7:73. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2020.00073
Abstract: In this paper, we present a novel pipeline to simultaneously estimate and manipulate the deformation of an object using only force sensing and an FEM model. The pipeline is composed of a sensor model, a deformation model and a pose controller. The sensor model computes the contact forces that are used as input to the deformation model which updates the volumetric mesh of a manipulated object. The controller then deforms the object such that a given pose on the mesh reaches a desired pose. The proposed approach is thoroughly evaluated in real experiments using a robot manipulator and a force-torque sensor to show its accuracy in estimating and manipulating deformations without the use of vision sensors.
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