Breaking Eggs

In order to do good research, sometimes you have to break some eggs. In this case, in order to write a good controller for the PR2 gripper, UPenn's Matt Piccoli has been breaking a lot of eggs. Matt is on his second stint at Willow Garage as an intern, and, together with Sachin Chitta, he crushed a lot of eggs with the PR2 to figure out just how much force it takes to crack an egg. They were able to use this data to write a better grasp controller for the PR2. Their key observation was that it was the momentum of the gripper that helped crush the egg, so they wrote a controller that switched between two modes: it starts as velocity controller, but it then switches to an effort controller when it senses the egg in its grasp. This new controller has many uses beyond eggs. By starting with a harder target like an egg, they can now use the same controller for less delicate objects as well.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• eggs
• robot
• pr2
• willowgarage
• controller
• grasping
• grasp
• gripper

[roockowacko]

eggiweggs... >:D

[Illisil]

Smart man, I look forward to hearing your name in the fields of robotics and prosthetic limbs. Good stuff.

[XIsOurWeapon]

way to make me feel smart for watching you break eggs, thank you :D

[94dicky94]

i dont get it

[dave19941000]

not enuff egg breaking >:(

[drVitall]

Love your videos:)