IKEA tries to make it very simple for customers to assemble their own furniture. All of it comes with instructions, and if those are followed to the letter, then assembling furniture wouldn’t be complicated at all. However, this robot lends an extra hand and can be of immense help. Who thought putting together furniture could be so high-tech?
Italian researchers programmed a robot so that it could help them in putting together a table from IKEA. The robot was taught through a process, which is called kinesthetic teaching. In this process the robot uses its vision tracking system and a force sensor to learn whatever movements that are being taught to it. The video shows us how the robot first aids the builder by flipping over the tabletop, then automatically stiffens so that the builder can easily screw in the legs of the table. The robot also has compliant behavior, it moves accordingly with the movements of the builder. Obviously the robot is not a mainstream product that you can order for IKEA building nirvana, but it definitely shows us the many household applications of a programmable robot.
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