Micro/Meso-scale manipulation

  • Article

The General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab is an inter-disciplinary research center at the University of Pennsylvania. In this lab Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS) is used to develop a distributed remote micro/meso-scale manipulation system to assembly parts ranging in size from microns to a few millimeters. The system supports both the real-world experimentation and virtual-world simulation. 

 

The system consists of sensing, actuation, simulation, control, and planning modules which are implemented as MSRS Services and can be distributed on any computer on the internet. The true nature of the distribution becomes apparent when the micro/meso-scale manipulation system located in Philadelphia, PA was successfully controlled using a MSRS services located at both Cherry Hill, NJ (13 miles) and Atlanta, GA (722 miles).

 

Further Microsoft Robotics Studio facilitated the integration and leverage of existing subsystems such as the dynamics engine for the quasi-static simulation is implemented in Matlab. The other non-MSRS modules, e.g. vision and controller modules, are integrated through the WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) communication. 

 

For more details, please see the following links:

  1. System Architecture: https://grasp.upenn.edu/~chpeng/msrs.manipulation.swf
  2. Manipulation Hardware Setup and Algorithms: https://www.grasp.upenn.edu/~dcappell/GRASPMicromanipulation.htm

 

The following two pictures show the remote manipulation from Atlanta, GA to Philadelphia, PA.

 

[A snapshot of the MSRS visual simulation environment in Atlanta, GA, in which the positions and orientations of the part and probe were passed from the actual vision program (shown in the top right corner) in Philadelphia, PA]

 

 

 

[Prof. Vijay Kumar (project leader) and Duruhan Ozcelik beside the vision capture in Philadelphia, PA; Peng Cheng and Dave Cappelleri holding up RSS conference T-shirt in Atlanta, GA.]

Thanks

Joseph Fernando