At TRI, we believe that robots should amplify rather than replace people. Our mission is to assist individuals with everyday tasks, whether at home or elsewhere. Many manipulation tasks require more than just our hands and fingers; people often use their bodies in creative ways to interact with the world around them. For instance, carrying multiple groceries into the house in one trip involves using various body parts to hold bags, open doors, and maintain balance.
To address the need for robots that can handle large, heavy, and unwieldy items, we have developed Punyo. In Japanese, “Punyo” describes something soft, cute, and resilient. Punyo’s hands, arms, and chest are covered with compliant materials and tactile sensors, allowing it to make contact anywhere and feel its surroundings. This softness enables Punyo’s surface to conform to objects it grasps, preventing slipping and evenly distributing grasping forces.
Unlike standard robot grippers, Punyo’s arms have bubble-paw-like structures with high-resolution tactile sensors. The Punyo team is focused on larger-scale manipulation using the arms and chest to complement TR’s efforts in finer robot hand and gripper-based dexterity. By combining intuitive teleoperation tools with high-fidelity simulations, we are teaching Punyo robust policies for performing contact-rich tasks autonomously.
Punyo’s ability to manipulate objects close to its chest with a grippy skin results in efficient and robust strategies for handling heavier objects with less power. By utilizing its whole body rather than just outstretched hands, Punyo can carry more weight and make better contact with objects, making it safer, more reactive, and more approachable for collaboration with people. The Punyo team at TRI is dedicated to creating a future where robots and humans can cooperate productively and harmoniously side by side.
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Video Transcript
At TR We Believe robots should amplify rather than replace people our mission is to help people with everyday tasks in their homes and elsewhere many of these manipulation tasks require more than just our hands and fingers people use their bodies in creative ways to manipulate the world around them think
About getting your groceries into your house in just one trip you hold multiple bags in your arms you open the door with your elbow and then you hold it open with your hip it’s easy to imagine in many other tasks like lifting a large box moving furniture or collecting piles
Of laundry where you need more than just your hands to get these jobs done our work towards truly capable robots involves developing hardware and algorithms that enable them to help with the large heavy and unwieldy items in our lives meet puno in Japanese the word puno describes something soft cute and
Resilient puno’s hands arms and chest are covered with compliant materials and tactile sensors so that can make contact anywhere and feel it the softness allows poo surface is to conform to the object it’s grasping which prevents slipping and more evenly distributes grasping forces you won’t find standard robot
Grippers at the end of puno’s arms instead they’re more like bubble Paws with high resolution tactile sensing cameras inside the puno team is focused on larger scale manipulation using the arms and chest to complement tr’s other efforts in finer robot hand and gripper based dexterity we put our Hardware to
The test with numerous contact Rich tasks some of these skills are demonstrated by people directly While others are learned and fine-tuned using High Fidelity simulations high quality consistent demonstrations are needed to teach robust policies so we are dedicating significant time to intuitive teleoperation tools for whole body skills during these demonstrations
Camera feeds tactile sensor data and robot motions are recorded and used to train the robot to perform the same contact Rich skills autonomously P also learn some of its skills in simulation given a starting point a goal and a single rough demonstration puno can deter DET the Motions required to rotate
And lift various large objects while learning we can also work towards strategies that are more robust or energy efficient intuitive to people and also true for robots adding a grippy skin and manipulating objects close to our chest results in ability to manipulate heavier objects using less power it’s
Surprisingly common to see robots carry objects even heavy ones using only their hands poo does things differently taking advantage of its whole body it can carry more more than it could by simply grasping with outstretched hands while softness tactile sensing and the ability to make a lot of contact advantageously
Allow better object manipulation these features also make our robots safer more reactive and more approachable the puno team at TR is working towards a future where robots and people safely productively and happily collaborate side by side
Video “Meet Punyo, TRI’s Soft Robot for Whole-Body Manipulation Research” was uploaded on 02/27/2024 to Youtube Channel Toyota Research Institute