Talks

Thin and imperceptible soft skins that can detect internal deformations as well as external forces, can go a long way to ad-dress perception and control challenges in soft robots. However, decoupling proprioceptive and exteroceptive stimuli is a challenging task. In this paper, we present a silicone-based, capacitive E-skin for exteroception and proprioception (SCEEP). This soft and stretchable sensor can perceive stretch as along with touch at 100 different points via its 100 tactels. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm that decouples global strain from local indentations due to external forces. The soft skin is 10.1cm in length and 10cm in width and can be used to accurately measure the global strain of up to 25% with an error of under 3%; while at the same time, can determine the amplitude and position of local indentations. This is a step towards a fully soft electronic skin that can act as a proprioceptive sensor to measure internal states while measuring external forces.

QMUL Robotics showcase - presentations for EPSRC Date: 10 July 2020 00:29 Welcome and Introduction of ARQ, Kaspar Althoefer (Professor, EECS/SEMS) 04:35 Lorenzo Jamone (Lecturer, EECS) - cognitive robotics, manipulation 09:48 Ketao Zhang (Lecturer, SEMS) - robotic mechanisms/drones 14:20 Ildar Farkhatdinov (Lecturer, EECS) - assistive robotics/virtual reality 18:19 Kaspar Althoefer, Soft robotics/robotics for extreme environments/medical robotics & video-lab tour and robot demonstrations 35:38 Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery (Lecturer, SEMS) Identification of underlying control policies for successful movement across all legged locomotion 42:10 Lin Wang (Lecturer, EECS), Robot audition 46:39 Elisabetta Versace (Lecturer, SBCS) robotics for animal intelligence research Cancelled: Stuart Miller (Lecturer, SEM) human movement to inform robotics 52:06 Angadh Nanjangud (Lecturer, SEMS) computational multibody dynamics and control framework for space robots

A Distinguished Lecture by Professor Kaspar Althoefer of the Department of Informatics at King's College London. Professor Althoefer explores the concept of robot intelligence and traces advancement in robotics over the last two decades. He presents modern methods aimed at instilling intelligence into a robot's "brain", covering aspects such as sensing and perception, reactive behaviours, autonomy, embodied cognition, biologically inspired methods and robot-environment interaction. Find out more about on research on our website: www.kcl.ac.uk/informatics

Join the CogX Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI and Breakthroughs Technology - June 8th to 10th 2020 - https://cogx.co/ Subscribe to our epic newsletters for free https://cognitionx.com/newsletter-subscribe/ Professor Kaspar Althoefer - Queen Mary University of London ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CognitionX: The AI Advice Platform Connecting organisations with a global, on-demand network of AI experts Get Started at https://directory.cognitionx.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow CognitionX: ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/cognition_x ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognitionx/ #cogx18 (edited) CogX is hosted by Charlie Muirhead Co-Founder and CEO, and Co-Founder Tabitha Goldstaub. Find out more at: https://cogx.co/ CogX is an award-winning Festival with its roots in artificial intelligence. The fourth edition, June 8th to 10th 2020, adds a Virtual first experience and Global Leadership Summit, and builds on the huge success of the 2019 event, which brought together over 20,000 visitors. 2020 saw over 30,000 participants including 600+ speakers across 18 topic stages and 100+ side events. Our theme this year, “How do we get the next 10 years right?” with aims to: Move the conversation forward with concrete actions Inspire current and future generations of leaders Help reframe the climate emergency as the biggest economic opportunity in the last 200 years Help increase understanding of the current Covid-19 pandemic and champion innovative solutions CogX – Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI & Breakthrough Technology

Guest speaker: Kaspar Althoefer, Queen Mary University of London "Integrating soft robots with the sense of touch" Workshop ROMADO (Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects) http://commandia.unizar.es/irosworkshop2020/ In conjunction with IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2020). The conference is held on-demand from October 25 to December 25, 2020. http://www.iros2020.org/ The organization of this workshop is supported by project COMMANDIA (Collaborative Robotic Mobile Manipulation of Deformable Objects in Industrial Applications), SOE2/P1/F0638, which is cofinanced by Interreg Sudoe Programme (European Regional Development Fund) http://commandia.unizar.es/

Talk at the ICRA workshop 'ViTac 2020: Closing the Perception-Action Loop with Vision and Tactile Sensing. Workshop website: http://wordpress.csc.liv.ac.uk/smartlab/vitac-2020/

#RoboSoft #Keynote #KasparAlthoefer #SoftRobotics A keynote address by Professor Kaspar Althoefer from Advanced Robotics @ Queen Mary, Queen Mary University of London at the RoboSoft 2019 conference in Seoul,Korea about “Fusing Perception with Structure in Soft Robotics”

Title: Advancing the Sense of Touch for Collaborative Robots Author: Kaspar Althoefer Affiliation: University of London Abstract: With the ever-increasing demand for robots to interact and collaborate with humans, comes the need for more and more sophisticated sensor technologies allowing the robot to perceive the physical interaction with the environment and, above all, to ensure the human's safety. The development of force and tactile sensors has been considerable over the recent past. However, more research efforts are needed to create sensors that can be integrated with the robot end effectors to augment robotic systems currently heavily relying on vision-based sensors with a sense of touch. Only with the appropriate touch sensor integrated, we will be able to achieve robotics solutions capable of closing the control loop for reliable object manipulation. In my talk, I will report on the advancements at the Centre for Advanced Robotics @ Queen Mary in the area of force and tactile sensors and their integration with robotic systems. I will focus on the developmental stages of our optic-fibre-based sensors that prove to be extremely suitable for miniaturisation and integration with standard robot hands and grippers. Very recent work aims at extending our optics-based approach into the realm of soft robotics.