Ken Goldberg on the New Wave of Robotic Grasping
UC Berkeley Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Ken Goldberg recently sat down to talk about the future of robotics through the University of Toronto Robotics Institute Seminar Series. The conversation also delves into robotic history, the role of robotics in manufacturing, and how robots can be more effecient,among other things.
From the video:
Despite 50 years of research, robots remain remarkably clumsy, limiting their reliability for warehouse order fulfillment, robot-assisted surgery, and home decluttering. The First Wave of grasping research is purely analytical, applying variations of screw theory to exact knowledge of pose, shape, and contact mechanics. The Second Wave is purely empirical: end-to-end hyperparametric function approximation (aka Deep Learning) based on human demonstrations or time-consuming self-exploration. A "New Wave" of research considers hybrid methods that combine analytic models with stochastic sampling and Deep Learning models. I'll present this history with new results from our lab on grasping diverse and previously-unknown objects.
Watch the full video here!