Talk by Prof. Jeff Trinkle

Title: Simulation-Based Planning and Design for Robotic Systems  with Intermittent Contact
Date: Monday, 8th of June 2009, 9:30h
Location: N5, room: N0507
Abstract:

One of the main weaknesses of intelligent robotic systems today is their inability to reason
generally about contact. This prevents them from planning and performing grasping and
dexterous manipulation in unstructured environments such as homes. In manufacturing
settings, robotic workcells are typically highly structured with tight tolerances, so much so, that
these "flexible" workcells have little flexibility and high implementation costs. These two issues
alone present significant drags on the growth of the personal robotics market and penetration
of robotic systems in the manufacturing of personalized and low-volume products.
Results in time-stepping methods for multibody systems, optimization techniques, and
supporting software have presented roboticists (and their robots) with some of the technical
components needed to support simulation-based planning and design tasks involving
intermittent contact. In this talk, I will present a basic underlying multibody model and discuss
its use in solving a range of problems from planning dexterous manipulation to the design of
plate motions for vibratory manipulation. As will be seen, the power of simulation-based
approaches are that they can yield solutions when human intuition completely fails and they
can provide better solutions by considering possibilities outside of the designer's "comfort
zone."