RoCycle robot gets a feel for paper, metal and plastic

The advance from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) includes a soft teflon hand that uses tactile sensors on its fingertips to detect an object’s size and stiffness.

Said to be compatible with any robotic arm, RoCycle was 85 per cent accurate at detecting materials when stationary, and 63 per cent accurate on a simulated conveyer belt. Problems arose identifying paper-covered metal tins as paper, which the team said would be improved by adding more sensors along the contact surface.

“Our robot’s sensorised skin provides haptic feedback that allows it to differentiate between a wide range of objects, from the rigid to the squishy,” said MIT professor Daniela Rus, senior author on a new paper about RoCycle that will be presented in April at the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics in Seoul, South Korea. “Computer vision alone will not be able to solve the problem of giving machines human-like perception, so being able to use tactile input is of vital importance.”