Door-Opening Control of a Service Robot Using the Multifingered Robot Hand

Service robots are spreading their application areas to human coexisting real environments. However, it is still difficult to find an autonomous robot that is capable of manipulation services in a real environment. The three major difficulties of manipulation service can be summarized as follows: 1) unstructured human-centered environment; 2) limited resources in a robot; and 3) uncertainties in real environments. This paper deals with the autonomous manipulation task by a service robot in human coexisting environment. We focus on a door-opening problem. In this paper, we concentrate on three issues from the viewpoint of service-robot applications. The first issue is to estimate kinematic parameters by using an active-sensing strategy to overcome uncertainties in a real environment. The second issue is to provide an integrated strategy of motion coordination for door-opening control. This paper discusses the role assignment of each subsystem that depends on the physical characteristics. The third issue is to use the fingertip-contact forces to estimate the external force from a doorknob, instead of using an additional high-cost force sensor at the wrist. The proposed scheme is shown to be useful through experimental results.