UCLV
Università degli Studi della Campania – Luigi Vanvitelli (UCLV) (until November 2016, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli) participates to REMODEL with the Automatic Control group of the Engineering Department. The main skills of Automatic Control research group of UCLV, – http://www.roboticslab.unicampania.it – which will be involved in REMODEL, are focused on the following described research areas strictly related to the project. Such experience is proved by several publications in international journals and conferences proceedings of primary relevance, and by National and European patents.
The research activity of UCLV in the development of sensors for advanced robotic systems have covered the development of the entire sensory system of the DEXMART hand, which includes joint angular sensors, tendon tension sensors, tactile sensors for the fingertips. These activities have been carried out in collaboration with the most important European research centres within several European research projects. A European patent application has been submitted for the tactile sensor. From the tactile sensor developed in DEXMART an artificial skin, based on the same technology, has been developed in SAPHARI project with the aim to cover different robotic parts, e.g. palm, arm, torso and mobile platform. Both the tactile sensor and the artificial skin have been awarded as the best interactive presentation by the National Society of Automatic Control Researchers (SIDRA) in 2011 and in 2013, respectively. UCLV developed also models of the tactile sensor deformable layer and algorithms for the tactile data interpretation. The Extended Kalman Filter has been used to reconstruct the geometric parameters of the contact. These data have been used to estimate object properties such as the friction coefficient and to implement innovative algorithms for slipping detection and avoidance. Also, this slipping detection approach has been awarded by SIDRA in 2015. Then, UCLV developed a new version of the tactile sensor, suitably designed for the wire manipulation, within the WIRES project. The sensor is able to reconstruct the wire shape and the results have been presented at AIM 2017 (IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics), where the presented paper has been awarded as Best Conference Paper. In the same project, UCLV collaborates with UNIBO and IEMA to develop control approaches for wire grasping during cabling. In 2017, UCLV started its research activities within the H2020 REFILLS Project, currently ongoing, which proposes the development of robotic systems to improve the following logistics processes in a supermarket: shelf monitoring; store delivery and presorting of goods; initial shelf filling; refilling from the backroom. UCLV will use its previous experience to develop manipulation techniques which can be adaptable to the many objects to be handled, considering the different shapes, translational and/or rotational slipping effects.