HARRI: High-Speed Adaptive Robot Can Catch Flying Balls, Boxes

We have all seen robots pick up and manipulate objects of varying shapes and sizes. It is much harder for them to grasp objects thrown at them. HARRI is a high-speed adaptive robot that can catch a flying ball or box. This robot was developed at the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at UCLA. It uses “quasi-direct drive proprioceptive actuators combined with advanced control strategies such as impedance control and real-time model predictive control (MPC)” for high speed manipulation tasks.

Its actuators have proprioceptive sensing embedded in them, so HARRI features real-time feedback on position, torque and velocity without external sensors. As the above video shows, this robot can catch flying objects

[HT]