Acquisition of manipulation skills from a haptic rendered virtual environment

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Chen, Y. | Naghdy, F.^{; *}

Affiliations: School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering, University of Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia. Tel.: +61 42 21 3398; Fax: +61 42 21 3236; E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author.

Abstract: A new paradigm for programming a robotics manipulator is developed. It is intended that the teaching of the machine will begin with the necessary skills being demonstrated by the human operator in a virtual environment with tactile sensing (haptics). Position, and contact force and torque data generated in the virtual environment combined with a priori knowledge about the task are used to identify and learn the skills in the newly demonstrated tasks and then to reproduce them in the robotics system. The peg-in-hole insertion problem is used as a case study. The overall concept is described. The methodologies developed to build the virtual environment and to learn the basic skills are explained. The results obtained so far are presented.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2004-11406

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 359-372, 2004