The guest lecture is part of the Lighthouse Robotics project at the IME-faculty ("Fyrtårnsprosjektet Robotikk").

Summary

Definitions and classification of non-rigid objects of sheet form. Applications in services and industry for robotic manipulation of deformable objects.  Characteristics and physical properties of deformable objects.  Experimental evaluation of the most critical configuration parameters.

Robot abilities for deformable objects manipulation. Approaches for manipulation of sheet form non-rigid objects. Manipulation of low bending rigidity objects such as sheet of thin foam or thin plastic. State of the Art on sensor -based model free motion planning and control methods for robotic manipulation of low bending rigidity objects.

Manipulation of very low bending rigidity objects (Fabrics).  Fabric placement by robot manipulators without additional sensors.  Visual servoing for fabric folding and intelligent hierarchical control scheme for robotic sewing of fabrics. Development of hands with underactuated fingers and their motion sequences for fabric grasping.  Methods developed for reducing fabric configurations and configuration recognition towards fabric unfolding. Human-robot interaction for fabric manipulation based on force and vision feedback.

Future work trends and perspectives.

Short CV

Professor Nikos A. Asprgathos leads the Robotics Group in Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering Department, University of Patras, Greece. His main research interests are robotics, intelligent motion planning and control for mobile robots, as well as dextrous manipulation of rigid and non-rigid objects, micro-manipulation, knowledge-based design,  metamorphic manipulators, industrial automation, and computer graphics.

He is reviewer in more than 30 Journals and more than 20 conferences, member of the editorial board of the Mechatronics Journal, Robotica, and ISRN Robotics. He published more than 70 papers in Journals and more than 130 papers in conference proceedings. He was and is currently involved in research projects funded by Greek and European Union sources.