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Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice 4 pp 245–262Cite as

Challenges in Robotic Soft Tissue Manipulation—Problem Identification Based on an Interdisciplinary Case Study of a Teleoperated Drawing Robot in Practice

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Abstract

Manipulating soft materials with robots is a complex and highly interdisciplinary research topic. Due to the underlying body of involved theories including material science, (bio-)mechanics, control, sensing as well as electrical and mechanical engineering, it is even difficult to provide a comprehensive problem formulation. In this paper, the problem of identifying challenges within the different research areas and between their respective interfaces is addressed with a practical case study. Based on a generalized sandbox scenario of a remotely controlled drawing robot, challenges with regard to the interdisciplinary research fields of robot control, architecture, sensor development, material modelling and interaction between rigid actuators acting on soft materials are investigated and analyzed. The major contribution of this paper is the explicit identification of unresolved research problems in the field and a quantification of the correlations between the involved disciplines. Furthermore, novel approaches on how to circumvent some of the found challenges in the future are proposed.

Keywords

  • Soft material
  • Problem formulation
  • Manipulation
  • Robot
  • Teleoperation
  • Case study

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Faculty of Engineering and the Auckland Bioengineering Institute of the University of Auckland for providing facilities and tools that enabled our interdisciplinary approach. We would like to thank Gal Gorjup and Minas Liarokapis for providing their teleoperation interface for our implementation of a remote control.

Funding

The research leading to this publication has received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the International Research Training Group “Soft Tissue Robotics” (GRK 2198/1), the Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Development Fund of the University of Auckland and the Faculty Research Development Fund of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute of the University of Auckland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    M. Wnuk, F. Jaensch, D. A. Tomzik, Z. Chen, J. Terfurth, S. Kandasamy, J. Shahabi, A. Garrett, M. H. Mahmoudinezhad, A. Csiszar, W. L. Xu, O. Röhrle & A. Verl

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  1. M. Wnuk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Wnuk .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Prof. Dr. John Billingsley

  2. Agricultural Technologies and Robotics, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Peter Brett

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Wnuk, M. et al. (2021). Challenges in Robotic Soft Tissue Manipulation—Problem Identification Based on an Interdisciplinary Case Study of a Teleoperated Drawing Robot in Practice. In: Billingsley, J., Brett, P. (eds) Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43703-9_20

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