In recent years, robots have gained artificial vision, touch, and even smell. "Researchers have been giving robots human-like perception," says MIT Associate Professor Fadel Adib. In a new paper, Adib's team is pushing the technology a step further. "We're trying to give robots superhuman perception," he says.
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Robots have been developed with various senses, often depending on their intended application - from vision, touch, and even smell and taste. Now, a team led by MIT is trying to give robots superhuman perception with a new design.
Presenting their study at the upcoming IEEE International Conference on Robotics this May, the team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) designed a robot that uses radio frequency waves that penetrate obstacles such as walls to sense what lies behind them. Called the RF-Grasp, the new robot combines the radio frequency sensing capabilities with the traditional machine vision to locate, identify, and grasp items that might even be hidden from view.
Credits: Courtesy of the researchers
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In recent years, robots have gained artificial vision, touch, and even smell. “Researchers have been giving robots human-like perception,” says MIT Associate Professor Fadel Adib. In a new paper, Adib’s team is pushing the technology a step further. “We’re trying to give robots superhuman perception,” he says.
The researchers have developed a robot that uses radio waves, which can pass through walls, to sense occluded objects. The robot, called RF-Grasp, combines this powerful sensing with more traditional computer vision to locate and grasp items that might otherwise be blocked from view. The advance could one day streamline e-commerce fulfillment in warehouses or help a machine pluck a screwdriver from a jumbled toolkit.
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