Object Grasping Instructions to Support Robot by Laser Beam One Drag Operations

We propose a system in which users can intuitively instruct the robot gripper’s positions and attitudes simply by tracing the object’s grasp part surface with one stroke (one drag) of the laser beam. The proposed system makes use of the “real world clicker (RWC)” we have developed earlier, a system capable of obtaining with high accuracy the three-dimensional coordinate values of laser spots on a real object by mouse-operating the time-of-flight (TOF) laser sensor installed on the pan-tilt actuator. The grasping point is specified as the centroid of the grasp part’s plane region by the laser drag trajectory. The gripper attitude is specified by selecting the left and right drag modes that correspond to the PC mouse’s left and right click buttons. By doing so, we realize a grasping instruction interface where users can take into account various physical conditions for the objects, environments, and grippers. We experimentally evaluated the proposed system by measuring the grasping instruction time of multiple test subjects for various daily use items.