| | AccuRobAs - Accurate Robot Assistant | The strategic objective of the AccuRobAs project is to develop an assistite robot system for surgical purpose, applicable also for everyday human environment. As an implementation example we use the assistive robot system to illustrate general robotic problems. Such a system requires the following features: high accuracy, haptic feedback, intuitive handling and absolute safety. For proving the feasibility of our approaches we choose the operation theatre, where these demands have to be met to an extremely high degree. This project therefore addresses the IST Call 6 objectives of Advanced Robotics by conceiving a Flexible robot system able to perform diverse tasks. The presented applications deal with medical robotics and therefore stress is laid on the realisation of a safe, robust and dependable overall system.
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| | Xpero - Learning by Experimentation | The Xpero project has the objective of building a robot able to "learn by experimentation". It involves the topic of Machine Learning in Embodied Cognitive Systems, Computational Perception, Knowledge Engineering and Intelligent Assistive Robotics.
The role of the University of Verona in the Xpero project is to research, develop, build, and maintain the embodiments used for the process of machine learning/insight gaining/data mining and interaction with the environment. | | |
| | Eddy: an Open Hardware Robot for Education | | Eddy (Educational Device Do-it-Yourself) is an educational mobile robot built following the Open Hardware paradigm with the purpose of being an inexpensive, highly-customizable device for schools and research institutes. | | |
| | Human Factors in Haptics | Haptic, from the Greek Haphe, pertains to the sense of touch.
Haptic interfaces are developed to simulate the action of touching virtual or remote object endowed with suitable dynamics (i.e. hardness and elasticity).
In our laboratory, different haptic devices are involved for an improvement in understanding of the human capabilities in haptic perception.
Our research can allow to define control systems based not only on engineering criteria, but also on user-related perceptual criteria. | | |
| | Planning | | The ability to develop a plan and carry out a surgical task is fundamental for a surgical system, either controlled by a human user or autonomous. Typically, a surgical procedure will consist of a number of sequential, or parallel, elementary tasks, i.e. the single activity of the robot (e.g. a single move, or a push against a tissue, or a sensory observation). | | |
| | Virtual Abdomen |
The goal of this project is the development of a framework for reconstruction of virtual abdomen from patient specific data. CT scan and MRI are used to extract organ shape, tissue dynamic characteristics and to generate organ deformable models. A user can interact with those models through haptic devices.
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| | Penelope | We develop a framework to be used for rapid experimental
setup and easy integration of all the components in a robotic task scenario. Due to the complexity of nowadays robotic systems it is necessary to deal with different devices, real-time behavior, distributed resources, general purpose structure and safe exchange of data. Our software architecture, Penelope, supports and simplifies the problem of setting up robotic scenarios for complex task, such as haptic experiments. | | |
| | IPMCs and robotics: a feasibility assessment | | IPMCs are innovative materials with the potential to provide robotics with soft actuators. Their actuation requirements are compatible with current low-cost technology, as they can be operated at low currents or voltages (less than 2 V will do). IPMCs, however, are extremely challenging to deploy, as they exhibit non-linearity, time-variance, input-dependence and hysteresis. In this work, we seek to determine a method to govern their inherent complexity and thus achieve reliable soft actuators for robotics. | | |
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