Manipulating a multi-DOF robot manipulator for tasks in home-like environments

Abstract

As more robots are expected to enter the families to provide assistance soon, many challenging problems shall emerge, when facing the uncertain and varying environments, rather than the organized environments in factories. To date, robots still demand human\'s assistance when working in home-like environments. To enhance their usefulness, one issue of much interest is how we can effectively operate them for task execution. If not for detailed analysis and program coding, one appealing alternate is to provide a kind of manipulative system for the user to manipulate the robot naturally and efficiently. That motivates us to develop a dextrous manipulation system for multi-DOF robot manipulators based on using the 6-DOF force-reflection joystick. To demonstrate its effectiveness, the developed manipulation system is utilized to govern the robot manipulator for the tasks of water pouring and screw fastening.