Soft fingers

Biological fingers are soft. That gives several advantages such as passive comformity of the contact surface to the geometry of an objects for maximize contact area, and to exploit passive dynamics of soft tissue for haptic perception. However, there is a limit to which a soft finger can safely grasp a uncertain objects that exhibit variation in shape and stiffness. We have been exploring approchaes to solve these problems using soft robotic fingers. Here are some of our publications in this area:

1. Liang He, Icey Lu, Sara Adela Abad Guaman, Nicolas Rojas, and Thrishantha Nanayakkara, “Soft Fingertips with Adaptive Sensing and Active Deformation for Robust Grasping of Delicate Objects”, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL), 2020. [PDF] [Media]
2. Qiujie Lu, Liang He, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Nicolas Rojas, “Precise In-Hand Manipulation of Delicate Objects using Soft Fingertips with Adaptive Sensing and Active Deformation”, 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), 2020. [PDF]
3. Damith Suresh Chathuranga, Wang, Zhongkui; Noh, Yohan; Thrishantha Nanayakkara; Shinichi Hirai, “Magnetic and Mechanical Modeling of a Soft Three-Axis Force Sensor”, IEEE Sensors, pp.5298 – 5307, vol. 16, no. 13, 2016. PDF
4. Damith Suresh Chathuranga, Zhongkui Wang, Yohan Noh, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Shinichi Hirai, “A Soft Three Axis Force Sensors that is Useful for Robot Grippers”, 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 5556 – 5563, DOI: 10.1109/IROS.2016.7759817, 2016. PDF
5. Chathuranga, Damith Suresh, Zhongkui Wang, Yohan Noh, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, and Shinichi Hirai. “Disposable Soft 3 Axis Force Sensor for Biomedical Applications.” In The 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), pp. 5521 – 5524, DOI: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319642, 2015. PDF
6. Damith Suresh Chaturanga, Zhongkuti Wang, Yohan Noh, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, and Shinichi Hirai, “Robust real Time Material Classification Algorithm using Soft Three Axis Tactile Sensor: Evaluation of the Algorithm”, pp.2093 – 2098, DOI: 10.1109/IROS.2015.7353655, IROS 2015. PDF
7. 1. Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Allen Jiang, María. R. Armas Fernández, Hongbin Liu, Kaspar Althoefer, Joao Bimbo, “Stable Grip Control on Soft Objects With Time Varying Stiffness”, in press, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 626-637, 2016. PDF video
8. Cotugno G, Konstantinova J, Althoefer K, Nanayakkara T (2018) Modelling the structure of object-independent human affordances of approaching to grasp for robotic hands. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0208228. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208228. PDF
9. Giuseppe Cotugno, Kaspar Althoefer, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, “The Role of the Thumb: Study of Finger Motion in Grasping and Reachability Space in Human and Robotic Hands”,  IEEE Transactions on SMC – Systems, pp.1061 – 1070, vol. 47, no. 7, 2017. PDF
10. Li, Min, Jelizaveta Konstantinova, Emanuele L. Secco, Allen Jiang, Hongbin Liu, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Lakmal D. Seneviratne, Prokar Dasgupta, Kaspar Althoefer, and Helge A. Wurdemann. “Using visual cues to enhance haptic feedback for palpation on virtual model of soft tissue.” Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, pp. 1177 – 1186, vol. 53, no. 11, 2015. PDF
11. Li, Min, Shan Luo, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Lakmal D. Seneviratne, Prokar Dasgupta, and Kaspar Althoefer. “Multi-fingered haptic palpation using pneumatic feedback actuators.” Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 218 (2014): 132-141. PDF
12. Song, Xiaojing, Hongbin Liu, Kaspar Althoefer, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, and Lakmal D. Seneviratne. “Efficient Break-Away Friction Ratio and Slip Prediction Based on Haptic Surface Exploration.” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 30, no. 1, 203 – 219, DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2013.2279630, 2014. PDF