Robust robotic grasping using IR Net-Structure Proximity Sensor to handle objects with unknown position and attitude

In this paper, we focus on unknown parameters such as the position and attitude of the object, and describe a short-range, high-speed and noncontact sensing method for obtaining the position and attitude of the object using IR Net-Structure Proximity Sensor (“IR-NSPS”) which complements the dead region of sensory information between visual and tactile sensing. To be more precise, we propose two effective control methods which are pre-shaping and object positioning using IR-NSPS for robust grasping by adjusting the gripper configuration in response to attitude error of up to ±45 deg and the position error of up to ±80 mm of the unknown object. The methods therefore can significantly increase the speed and effectiveness of grasping objects without requiring a specific approach that depends on a vision sensor. Furthermore, to demonstrate the advantages of pre-shaping and object positioning, object grasping experiments were performed using these two operations to grasp objects placed randomly on a tabletop.