Tiffany Cappellari

EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley

Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2021-53

May 12, 2021

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2021/EECS-2021-53.pdf

Robots possess great potential to help people within their homes with a variety of household chores such as organization and picking things up; however, tasks such as these require a high level of dexterity usually found in large, expensive armed robots that would be inconvenient, unaffordable, and intrusive in a typical home. Millirobots, on the other hand, could be a much more viable option as they are more cost effective for the average person and would be smaller, safer, and less obtrusive in the home. Millirobots with the capability to manipulate objects can be used in a number of ways; for example, in the home of a disabled and/or elderly person living alone, these robots can help with everyday tasks that may be difficult for this person to accomplish on their own such as removing tripping hazards, up righting fallen furniture, and fetching hard-to-reach objects. This project explores millirobots' ability to perform grasping and manipulation tasks on larger objects comparable to typical armed robots through the use of tethers and winches. The code can be found at https://github.com/tiffanyec/tether_bots and videos of the experiments can be found at https://youtu.be/8aOS7uYwEYE.

Advisors: Ronald Fearing

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BibTeX citation:

@mastersthesis{Cappellari:EECS-2021-53,
    Author= {Cappellari, Tiffany},
    Title= {Manipulation of Objects with Tethers and Millirobots},
    School= {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year= {2021},
    Month= {May},
    Url= {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2021/EECS-2021-53.html},
    Number= {UCB/EECS-2021-53},
    Abstract= {Robots possess great potential to help people within their homes with a variety of household chores such as organization and picking things up; however, tasks such as these require a high level of dexterity usually found in large, expensive armed robots that would be inconvenient, unaffordable, and intrusive in a typical home. Millirobots, on the other hand, could be a much more viable option as they are more cost effective for the average person and would be smaller, safer, and less obtrusive in the home. Millirobots with the capability to manipulate objects can be used in a number of ways; for example, in the home of a disabled and/or elderly person living alone, these robots can help with everyday tasks that may be difficult for this person to accomplish on their own such as removing tripping hazards, up righting fallen furniture, and fetching hard-to-reach objects. This project explores millirobots' ability to perform grasping and manipulation tasks on larger objects comparable to typical armed robots through the use of tethers and winches. The code can be found at https://github.com/tiffanyec/tether_bots and videos of the experiments can be found at https://youtu.be/8aOS7uYwEYE.},
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Thesis
%A Cappellari, Tiffany 
%T Manipulation of Objects with Tethers and Millirobots
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 2021
%8 May 12
%@ UCB/EECS-2021-53
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2021/EECS-2021-53.html
%F Cappellari:EECS-2021-53