16 The Columbia Grasp Database - Part ITop14 Matlab interface15 Hardware connections

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15 Hardware connections

We have found two main reasons for connecting GraspIt! to hardware devices. The first one if for GraspIt! to provide output: allow a real robot to be controlled from within the simulator. Usually, this is done by having a virtual model of the robot inside GraspIt! that uses an algorithm running in the simulated environment. The real robot must then match the pose of its virtual replica. The second application is to provide input to GraspIt!, in the form of object geometry from a scanner, object location from a tracker, robot pose, etc.

For the moment we do not have a unified architecture for connecting GraspIt! to real world devices. This means that when you need such a connection, you will probably need to write some interface code yourself. In the future, we might write a general interface for the virtual robot to real robot paradigm.

In our work, we have connected GraspIt! to the following external devices:

All the code for these connections is included with the current distribution. However, it has two shortcomings: first it is Windows-only. The only reason for that is serial port communication which he have not yet made cross-platform. The second is that the code needs a good overhaul to improve its design and robustness.

All the code that is specific to the hardware is offered as a separate Visual Studio project called hardware. It can be found in $GRASPIT/hardware. You will need to compile this project separately into a static library. Then, inside the main GraspIt! project file (graspit.pro), indicate that you want GraspIt! linked against it and its features accessible. This project contains a simple Serial Port interface that is used by all hardware interfaces, and interfaces for each of the three pieces of hardware mentioned above.

The second part of the interface is code that lives within GraspIt! itself. All of this code is guarded by pre-processor definitions so that it is only compiled if the hardware project had been built and linked against. We are really hoping to improve this design at some point. Most of this functionality is accessible from the GraspIt! GUI via the Sensors menu.

15.1 Barrett Hand

A virtual Barrett hand can be linked to a real Barrett hand. Then, the pose of the virtual hand can be replicated by the real hand, or vice versa. The GraspIt! GUI also provide a crude dialog window for doing this. The Barrett class is a good starting point to check out this implementation.

15.2 Flock of Birds

A Flock of Birds tracker can be used to set the position of any element (body or robot) in the GraspIt! simulation world. The following steps must be followed:

15.3 Cyberglove

A Cyberglove can be used to set the pose of a hand. However, hand models in GraspIt! do not necessarily have a perfect correspondence between their DOF's and glove sensors. Therefore, some translation is necessary, telling the hand which DOF's correspond to which glove sensors. This functionality is built into the GloveInterface class. Furthermore, some form of calibration is also needed to map raw sensor values to DOF values. This turned out to be a very delicate thing to achieve in practice. The GloveInterface can also perform calibration for you, then save the calibration to a file. Similar steps to the Flock of Birds must then be taken:

A calibration file is provided with the HumanHand20DOF model. We have done our best to calibrate it, but it is a difficult task, especially for the thumb joints. We have implemented a version of the algorithm presented by Weston B. Griffin, Ryan P. Findley, Michael L. Turner and Mark R. Cutkosky, Calibration and Mapping of a Human Hand for Dexterous Telemanipulation, Haptics Symposium 2000. However, the calibration code needs a major overhaul and the calibration itself probably could be improved.


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16 The Columbia Grasp Database - Part ITop14 Matlab interface15 Hardware connectionsContents