@article {3214, title = { Enhancing Adaptive Grasping Through a Simple Sensor-Based Reflex Mechanism }, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, volume = {2}, year = {2017}, month = {07/2017}, pages = {1664 - 1671}, abstract = {

This paper presents an approach to achieve adaptive grasp of unknown objects whose position is only approximately known via point-cloud data. We exploit the adaptability of a soft robotic hand which can autonomously conform to the shape of a grasped object if properly approached. Once a grasp approach has been preliminarily planned based only on rough estimates of the object position, the hand is shaped to a pregrasp configuration. Before closing the hand, a sensor-based algorithm is applied that corrects the relative hand-object posture so as to enhance the probability that the object is uniformly approached by all fingers, thus avoiding undesired premature contacts. The algorithm minimizes the distance between the hand{\textquoteright}s fingerpads and the object by continuously controlling both the wrist pose and orientation and the hand closure. Experimental studies with a Kuka-LWR arm and a Pisa/IIT Softhand illustrate the benefit of the developed technique and the improvement in grasping performance with respect to open-loop execution of grasps planned on the basis of prior RGB-D cues only.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/LRA.2017.2681122}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7875417/}, author = {Luberto, E. and Y. Wu and G. Santaera and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @article {2652, title = {Hand synergies: Integration of robotics and neuroscience for understanding the control of biological and artificial hands}, journal = {Physics of Life Reviews}, volume = {17}, year = {2016}, month = {07/2016}, pages = {1-23}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064516000269}, author = {M. Santello and M. Bianchi and M Gabiccini and E. Ricciardi and G. Salvietti and D Prattichizzo and M. Ernst and A. Moscatelli and H. Jorntell and A. Kappers and K. Kyriakopulos and A Albu-Schaeffer and C. Castellini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2465, title = {Grasp Planning with Soft Hands using Bounding Box Object Decomposition}, booktitle = {IEEE International Conference of Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2015)}, year = {2015}, note = {

softhands pacman walkman

}, pages = {518 - 523}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Hamburg, Germany, September 28 - October 02, 2015}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/IROS.2015.7353421}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=7353421\&queryText=Grasp\%20Planning\%20with\%20Soft\%20Hands\%20using\%20Bounding\%20Box\%20Object\%20Decomposition\&newsearch=true}, author = {M. Bonilla and D. Resasco and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2337, title = {Optimal Contact Force Distribution for Compliant Humanoid Robots in Whole-Body Loco-Manipulation Tasks}, booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2015)}, year = {2015}, pages = {5675 - 5681}, address = {Seattle, USA, 25 - 30 May}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139994}, author = {E. Farnioli and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2121, title = {Active gathering of frictional properties from objects}, booktitle = {Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2014)}, year = {2014}, pages = {3982 - 3987 }, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Chicago, USA}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/IROS.2014.6943122}, author = {C. Rosales and A. Ajoudani and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2232, title = {Grasping with Soft Hands}, booktitle = {IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS 2014)}, year = {2014}, pages = {581 - 587}, address = {Madrid, Spain, November 18 - 20}, abstract = {

Despite some prematurely optimistic claims, the ability of robots to grasp general objects in unstructured environments still remains far behind that of humans. This is not solely caused by differences in the mechanics of hands: indeed, we show that human use of a simple robot hand (the Pisa/IIT SoftHand) can afford capabilities that are comparable to natural grasping. It is through the observation of such human-directed robot hand operations that we realized how fundamental in everyday grasping and manipulation is the role of hand compliance, which is used to adapt to the shape of surrounding objects. Objects and environmental constraints are in turn used to functionally shape the hand, going beyond its nominal kinematic limits by exploiting structural softness. In this paper, we set out to study grasp planning for hands that are simple {\textemdash} in the sense of low number of actuated degrees of freedom (one for the Pisa/IIT SoftHand) {\textemdash} but are soft, i.e. continuously deformable in an infinity of possible shapes through interaction with objects. After general considerations on the change of paradigm in grasp planning that this setting brings about with respect to classical rigid multi-dof grasp planning, we present a procedure to extract grasp affordances for the Pisa/IIT SoftHand through physically accurate numerical simulations. The selected grasps are then successfully tested in an experimental scenario.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/HUMANOIDS.2014.7041421}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=\&arnumber=7041421\&queryText\%3DGrasping+with+Soft+Hands}, author = {M. Bonilla and E. Farnioli and C. Piazza and M. G. Catalano and G. Grioli and M. Garabini and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @inbook {1694, title = {HANDS.DVI: A DeVice-Independent programming and control framework for robotic HANDS}, booktitle = {Gearing up and accelerating cross-fertilization between academic and industrial robotics research in Europe - Technology transfer experiments from the ECHORD project}, volume = {94}, number = {Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics}, year = {2014}, pages = {197-215}, abstract = {

The scientific goal of HANDS.DVI consists of developing a common
framework to programming robotic hands independently from their kinematics,
mechanical construction, and sensor equipment complexity. Recent results on the
organization of the human hand in grasping and manipulation are the inspiration
for this experiment. The reduced set of parameters that we effectively use to control
our hands is known in the literature as the set of synergies. The synergistic
organization of the human hand is the theoretical foundation of the innovative approach
to design a unified framework for robotic hands control. Theoretical tools
have been studied to design a suitable mapping function of the control action (decomposed
in its elemental action) from a human hand model domain onto the
articulated robotic hand co-domain. The developed control framework has been
applied on an experimental set up consisting of two robotic hands with dissimilar
kinematics grasping an object instrumented with force sensors.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-02934-4_10}, author = {G. Salvietti and G. Gioioso and M. Malvezzi and D Prattichizzo and A. Serio and E. Farnioli and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi and I. Sarakoglou and N G Tsagarakis and D. G. Caldwell} } @conference {1983, title = {Natural Redundancy Resolution in Dual-Arm Manipulation using Configuration Dependent Stiffness (CDS) Control}, booktitle = {2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation}, year = {2014}, pages = {1480 - 1486}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Hong Kong, May 31 2014-June 7 2014 }, abstract = {

Incorporation of human motor control principles in the motion control architectures for humanoid robots or assistive and prosthesis devices will permit these systems not only to look anthropomorphic and natural at the body ware level but also to generate natural motion profiles resembling those executed by humans during manipulation and locomotion. In this work, relying on the observations on human bimanual coordination, a novel realtime motion control strategy is proposed to regulate the desired Cartesian stiffness profile during the execution of bimanual tasks. The novelty of the proposed control scheme relies on the use of common mode stiffness (CMS) and configuration dependent stiffness (CDS) to regulate the size and directionality of the task space stiffness ellipsoid. Thanks to the CDS control, the proposed scheme is not only proved to be effective in regulating the desired stiffness ellipsoid but also permits to resolve the manipulator redundancy in a natural manner. The effectiveness of the controller is evaluated in an experimental setup in which two cooperating robotic arms are executing an assembly task. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed dual-arm CDS-CMS controller is effective in tracking the desired stiffness ellipsoids as well as in producing human-like natural motions for the two robotic arms.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/ICRA.2014.6907047}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=\&arnumber=6945252}, author = {A. Ajoudani and N G Tsagarakis and J. Lee and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2120, title = {The Patched Intrinsic Tactile Object: a Tool to Investigate Human Grasps}, booktitle = {Proc. IEEE/RSJ Intl Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2014)}, year = {2014}, pages = {1261 - 1268}, address = {Chicago, USA}, abstract = {

In this paper we report on the development of a modular multi-DoF F/T sensor and its use in the implementation of a sensorized object capable of multi-touch detection. The sensor is composed of six 6-axis F/T sensors spatially organized on the faces of a cube. Different calibration methods are presented to directly tackle the coupling phenomena inherent to the spatial organization of the faces and the lightweight construction of the sensor which would have, otherwise, degraded its accuracy. To assess the performances of the calibration methods, a comparison is reported with respect to the measurements obtained with a commercial force/torque sensor considered as ground truth (ATI Delta). Thanks to the modular design and the possibility to cover the sensitive faces with surface patches of different geometry, a variety of sensorized objects with different shapes can be realized. The peculiar feature that all the components of the contact wrench can be measured on each face with high accuracy, renders it a unique tool in the study of grasp force distribution in humans, with envisioned use both in neuroscience investigations and robotic applications.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/IROS.2014.6942719}, author = {A. Serio and E. Riccomini and V. Tartaglia and I. Sarakoglou and M Gabiccini and N G Tsagarakis and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2084, title = {The tactile toolbox}, booktitle = {Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS), 2014 IEEE}, year = {2014}, address = {Houston, TX}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/HAPTICS.2014.6775573}, author = {A. Serio and M. Bianchi and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {2307, title = { Three-digit grasp haptic device with variable contact stiffness for rehabilitation and human grasping studies}, booktitle = {22nd Mediterranean Conference of Control and Automation (MED) 2014 }, year = {2014}, pages = {346 - 350}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Palermo, Italy, 16-19 June 2014 }, abstract = {

This paper describes an haptic system designed to vary the stiffness of three contact points in an independent and controllable fashion, by suitably regulating the inner pressure of three pneumatic tactile displays. At the same time, the contact forces exerted by the user are measured by six degree-of-freedom force sensors placed under each finger. This device might be profitably used in hand rehabilitation and human grasping studies. We report and discuss preliminary results on device validation as well as some illustrative measurement examples.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/MED.2014.6961395}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=\&arnumber=6961395}, author = {Altobelli, A and M. Bianchi and A. Serio and Baud-Bovy, G and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {1941, title = {A data-driven kinematic model of the human hand with soft-tissue artifact compensation mechanism for grasp synergy analysis}, booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)}, year = {2013}, pages = {3738 - 3745}, address = {Tokyo, Japan}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/IROS.2013.6696890 }, author = {M Gabiccini and G. Stillfried and H. Marino and M. Bianchi} } @article {1821, title = {Grasp Analysis Tools for Synergistic Underactuated Robotic Hands}, journal = {International Journal of Robotic Reasearch}, volume = {32}, year = {2013}, month = {11/2013}, pages = {1553 - 1576}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, author = {M Gabiccini and E. Farnioli and A. Bicchi} } @article {1683, title = {On Motion and Force Controllability of Precision Grasps with Hands Actuated by Soft Synergies}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics}, volume = {29}, year = {2013}, month = {12/2013}, pages = {1440 - 1456 }, abstract = {

To adapt to many different objects and tasks, hands are very complex systems with many degrees of freedom (DoFs), sensors, and actuators. In robotics, such complexity comes at the cost of size and weight of the hardware of devices, but it strongly affects also the ease of their programming. A possible approach to simplification consists in coupling some of the DOFs, thus affording a reduction of the number of effective inputs, and eventually leading to more efficient, simpler, and reliable designs. Such coupling can be at the software level, to achieve faster, more intuitive programmability or at the hardware level, through either rigid or compliant physical couplings between joints. Physical coupling between actuators and simplification of control through the reduction of independent inputs is also an often-reported interpretation of human hand movement data, where studies have demonstrated that few {\textquotedblleft}postural synergies{\textquotedblright} explain most of the variance in hand configurations used to grasp different objects. Together with beneficial simplifications, the reduction of the number of independent inputs to a few coupled motions or {\textquotedblleft}synergies{\textquotedblright} has also an impact on the ability of the hand to dexterously control grasp forces and in-hand manipulation. This paper aims to develop tools that establish how many synergies should be involved in a grasp to guarantee stability and efficiency, depending on the task and on the hand embodiment. Through the analysis of a quasi-static model, grasp structural properties related to contact force and object motion controllability are defined. Different compliant sources are considered, for a generalization of the discussion. In particular, a compliant model for synergies assumed, referred to as {\textquotedblleft}soft synergies,{\textquotedblright} is discussed. The controllable internal forces and motions of the grasped object are related to the actuated inputs. This paper investigates to what extent a hand with many joints can ex- loit postural synergies to control force and motion of the grasped object.

}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1109/TRO.2013.2273849}, author = {D Prattichizzo and M. Malvezzi and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @article {PMGB11, title = {On the Manipulability Ellipsoids of Underactuated Robotic Hands with Compliance Robotics and Autonomous Systems}, journal = {Robotics and Autonomous Systems, special issue on Autonomous Grasping}, volume = {60}, year = {2012}, note = {

in press, Available online 17 August 2011

}, pages = {337 - 346}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1016/j.robot.2011.07.014}, author = {D Prattichizzo and M. Malvezzi and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @conference {GBB11, title = {Dynamic Optimization of Tendon Tensions in Biomorphically Designed Hands with Rolling Constraints}, booktitle = {2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation}, year = {2011}, month = {May 9 - 13}, pages = {2698 - 2704}, address = {Shangai, China}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, author = {M Gabiccini and M. Branchetti and A. Bicchi} } @conference {SCGGB11, title = {The Hand Embodied}, booktitle = {Automatica.it 2011}, year = {2011}, note = {

poster presentation

}, month = {September, 7 - 9}, address = {Pisa, Italy}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, author = {A. Serio and M. G. Catalano and G. Grioli and M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} } @article {BGS11, title = {Modeling Natural and Artificial Hands with Synergies}, journal = {Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B}, volume = {366}, year = {2011}, pages = {3153 - 3161}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1098/rstb.2011.0152}, author = {A. Bicchi and M Gabiccini and M. Santello} } @article {GBPM11, title = {On the Role of Hand Synergies in the Optimal Choice of Grasping Forces}, journal = {Autonomous Robots [special issue on RSS2010]}, volume = {31}, number = {2 - 3}, year = {2011}, pages = {235 - 252}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, doi = {10.1007/s10514-011-9244-1}, author = {M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi and D Prattichizzo and M. Malvezzi} } @conference {GFMB11, title = {Structural Properties of Compliant Grasps with Underactuated Robotic Hands}, booktitle = {XX Congresso Aimeta}, year = {2011}, note = {

ISBN 978-88-906340-1-7 (online); ISBN 978-88-906340-0-0 (print)

}, month = {September, 12}, address = {Bologna, Italy}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, author = {M Gabiccini and E. Farnioli and M. Malvezzi and A. Bicchi} } @conference {BG10, title = {On the Role of Hand Synergies in the Optimal Choice of Grasping Forces}, booktitle = {Robotics Science and Systems}, year = {2010}, month = {June, 27}, address = {Zaragoza, Spain}, keywords = {Haptics, Robotics}, author = {M Gabiccini and A. Bicchi} }