Abstract
From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents o btained the followingquote: “Many modern day industries are beginning to rely m ore and more on robotic manipulators such asrobotic arms. Such robotic manipula tors may function to increase repeatability of tasks, increase efficiencyof pro duction lines, and bring other benefits to their operators. These benefits may b e especially realizedwhen the robotic manipulators perform tasks under the same conditions. For example, a robotic manipulatormay include an end effector that is specialized to grasp a particular class of objects from known or fixedorien tations. If different objects (e.g., those having different dimensions, surface properties, and otherdifferences) or objects in unknown orientations are encoun tered, however, the robotic manipulator may beunable to achieve a grasp. Becaus e of this, other systems that rely on the object being manipulated maybe impact ed and the benefits of the robotic manipulator may be minimized.”
NETL
NSTL