Robotik
17. Februar 2021
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Mastermind is a simple, but very clever code-breaking board game from the 70s. It is a perfect example of abductive reasoning, also called inference to the best explanation. Abduction is a method of (scientific) reasoning in which one chooses the hypothesis that best explains the available evidence. Abduction is the third type of logic inference, in addition to deductive and inductive reasoning. For example, medical doctors perform abduction when diagnosing a disease (hypothesis) given the observable symptoms (evidence). Abductive reasoning can produce false hypotheses, for example, because there might be several diseases producing similar symptoms. Doctors then go through progressively complex tests, successively decreasing the set of possible diseases matching the evidence – in principle very similar to playing Mastermind.
mehr zu: Studying Abductive Reasoning by Playing Mastermind
28. Mai 2020
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We all tried to navigate in a dark room in the middle of the night. Even when we know the room, it is challenging because our visual perception is high uncertainty. Uncertain perception and motion make motion planning an even harder problem. But reaching out to the wall to guide our hand is a simple and robust way because contact not just reduces uncertainty in our location.
mehr zu: When Robots Know What to Reach for - Contact-Based Motion Planning
27. Mai 2020
- © Robotics
The soft robotic hands developed in our lab are pneumatically actuated. That means, by opening inflation and deflation valves in a controlled manner, we can control the enclosed air in a particular air-chamber. The valves used are so called “binary valves”, referring to the characteristic that they only can take on two different states – open/closed. This comes with a drawback. If we want to close the fingers of the hand slowly, lets say to grasp an object, we need to open-close-open-close the valves in a bang-bang controlled manner that results in jittery movements of the finger. To enable smooth and slow movements, we would need a way to regulate the air-flow that is introduced when we open the valves.
Proportional valves are a way to tackle this problem. Unlike binary control valves which produce full flow when energized, proportional control valves produce pressure or flow proportional to an electrical signal. In recent years valves of this kind that satisfy our pressure-range requirements have become commercially available.
mehr zu: Proportional Valves for Precise Air-Mass/Air-Flow Control of Soft Pneumatic Actuators
28. Mai 2020
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If we want robots to help with daily chores, first they need to interact with their environment physically, and second, these machines need to accept their imperfection both in their motion and perception. This is a difficult problem because modeling the environment and dynamic interactions are either a weak approximation or too complex to plan robustly or efficiently.
mehr zu: Human-Like Grasping With Robot-Like Reactiveness
