Page 9 - Human Inspired Dexterity in Robotic Manipulation

Background: Dexterity in Robotic Manipulation by Imitating Human Beings 3

can be obtained. Chapter 5 examines human reaching behavior when
manipulating parallel flexible objects and shows that the optimal hand tra-
jectory is composed of a fifth order polynomial (as in the classic minimum
jerk model) and trigonometric terms depending on the natural frequencies
of the system and time movement.
The second section provides recent results of design (Chapters 6 and 7),
control (Chapters 8 and 9), and planning (Chapter 10) for dexterous
robotic manipulation while considering human functions. Chapter 6 pre-
sents a novel anthropomorphic robotic hand design, imitating the salient fea-
tures of the human hand. Chapter 7 presents a novel fingertip design
imitating the structure of human fingers, and a robotic hand equipped with
the fingertip. Both designs give hints for constructing robotic hands utilizing
human hand features. Based on the human function of thumb opposability,
Chapter 8 presents a control schema utilizing the concept of passivity.
Chapter 9 presents the controller with considering the difference of sensing
timing between visual sensors (low sampling rate) and joint sensors (high
sampling rate). Chapter 10 presents a planning methodology to manipulate
objects with two arms like human beings.

1.2 COMPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

To make it easier to understand, complemental information is
provided here.

1.2.1 Statistically Significant Difference
When examining the differences between two groups, statistical hypothesis
testing is used. Both groups are supposed to be represented by the Student’s
t-distribution. The testing outputs the P-value (probability value), which
indicates the probability for the null hypothesis that each element of the
two groups belongs to the same distribution. If the P-value is less than
the given level of significance (for example, 0.05 or 5%), the null hypothesis
is rejected, and it can be said that there is a statically significant difference
between the two groups. This analysis is valid for the two groups. If the
number of the target groups is more than two, the post hoc test is performed
for the analysis. Table 1.1 shows a summary of which test should be per-
formed in each case. For details, please see text books on statistics, for
example [1].