Dexterity is important when robots are sent to remote locations to handle nuclear waste. The team at Queen Mary focused on developing soft robotics, including eversion robots (where the robot can turn inside out) to enable smart machines to access to extreme environments and deliver essential information to their operators.

Project achievements include:

Soft robotics, such as soft fabric-based inflatable grippers, to handle objects of different shapes
Tactile perception, especially using nuclear radiation-immune optics methods, for integration with robotic grippers and hands
Camera-based intelligent object detection
Visuo-tactile perception for autonomous robotic manipulation (e.g. grasping)
Computer vision and machine learning
Sensor delivery with reinforcement learning-based mapless navigation in unseen environments
Single picture-based policy learning for reaching objects
Autonomous robotic grasping and manipulation based on visual and tactile input
Software framework to ease integration of software and hardware components
Teleoperation of collaborative robot and dexterous robot hands with haptic feedback
Human-robot interaction for virtual reality (VR) interfaces
Haptic feedback systems
Soft grippers with variable stiffness hinges for dexterous grasping of objects
Electro-adhesive (EA) pads for anchoring on objects, to assist grasping using soft gripper

D7 - Queen Mary University London

Team Robotix, Centre for Advanced Robotics

Focus (or foci) of the group for NCNR: