Emerging paradigms for assistive robotic manipulation: from research labs to the real world
ICRA 2023 Full Day Workshop (FW11)
June 2nd, 2023, ExCel London
Location: South Gallery Room 22
ICRA 2023 Full Day Workshop (FW11)
June 2nd, 2023, ExCel London
Location: South Gallery Room 22
The capability to grasp and manipulate objects allows people to interact with their surrounding environment, and is key in daily working and social activities. Assistive technologies such as wheelchair-mounted robotic arms, prostheses, and supernumerary limbs have already shown their capability in providing more independence to people lacking manipulation skills due to an innate or acquired upper-limb motor disability.
This workshop aims at connecting developers, distributors, and end-users of assistive robots with expert researchers in the field of robotic manipulation to discuss how new and advanced grasp planning and control algorithms (e.g., techniques for grasping deformable objects), as well as new design paradigms for robotic hands (e.g., soft/smart materials, innovative sensing/actuation systems), have already been, or have the potential to be, adopted in assistive applications.
A special focus will also be the analysis of guidelines and best practices for a user-centric design, development and transfer of new approaches in the field from the research labs to the assistive world. For the transfer to be successful, not only the robotic solutions should work effectively and reliably, but they should, above all, be accepted by the end-users and the society.
08:45 - 09:00 Welcome and presentation of workshop objectives
09:00 - 09:20 JIZAI Body: beyond human limits - Masahiko Inami
09:20 - 09:45 Joint talk: Supernumerary fingers from the lab to the market - Domenico Prattichizzo & Francesca Burgo
09:45 - 10:10 Joint talk: Hand Prostheses: from the lab to the end-users - Manuel Catalano & Maria Fossati
10:10 - 10:30 The many facets of cloth manipulation in assistive robotics - Carme Torras
10:30 - 10:45 Poster Teasers (1 min each)
10:45 - 11:15 Poster Session and Coffee Break
11:15 - 11:50 Joint talk: Implementing assistive robotic technology in the UK - What have we learned? - Simon Fielden & Stephanie Castelete
11:50 - 12:10 Talk 6 - Harold Soh
12:10 - 12:30 Talk 7 - Yan Wu
12:30 - 12:50 Safety of Collaborative Robots: Challenges and some strategies - John Mcdermid
12:50 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 14:20 Human-Centric Design of Assistive Mobile Manipulators - Aaron Edsinger
14:20 - 14:40 Design and co-design of a mobile bi-manipulator for assistive applications - Narcis Miguel
14:40 - 15:00 EDAN: An assistive robot for people with physical disabilities - Jörn Vogel
15:00 - 15:05 Announcement of the best poster
15:05 - 15:45 Round Table with end-users and invited speakers: Ana Perez (Hospital Clínic de Barcelona) and Mihai Dragusanu (University of Siena) will briefly introduce their experience in designing and using assistive technology, opening the final discussion of the workshop.
15:45 - 16:15 End of the Workshop and Coffee Break
Francesca Burgo (Existo S.r.l., Italy)
Manuel Catalano (University of Pisa, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy)
Mihai Dragusanu (University of Siena, Italy)
Maria Fossati (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy)
Simon Fielden (Rahana Life, UK)
Masahiko Inami (University of Tokyo)
Charlie Kemp/Aaron Edsinger (Hello Robot Inc., the US)
John McDermid (Assuring Autonomy International Programme, University of York, the UK)
Narcis Miguel (PAL Robotics, Spain)
Ana Perez (Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Spain)
Domenico Prattichizzo (University of Siena, Italy)
Harold Soh (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
Carme Torras (Polytechnical University of Catalunya - UPC, Spanish Scientific Research Council - CSIC)
Jorn Voegel (German Aerospace Center - DLR)
Yan Wu (A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore)
Researchers interested in presenting their work during the workshop can submit an extended abstract in standard IEEE conference template, 2 pages. Please note that it is possible to use material that has already been presented in a previous conference. Abstracts will be reviewed by the organizers.
Extended abstracts should be submitted by e-mail to:
Maria Pozzi (maria.pozzi@unisi.it)
Virginia Ruiz Garate (vruizg@mondragon.edu)
Jihong Zhu (jihong.zhu@york.ac.uk)
Fan Zhang (f.zhang16@imperial.ac.uk)
Authors of accepted abstracts will have to prepare a poster and present it in person during the workshop.
Abstract submission deadline: April 20th, 2023 (AoE)
Notification of acceptance: ASAP and no later than April 24th, 2023 (AoE)
Workshop: June 2nd, 2023
Poster presenters will have to prepare a 1-slide presentation to briefly present their contribution during the "Poster Teasers" and an A0 poster in portrait orientation to be presented during the "Poster Session".
Hye Jung Yoon et al., Visual Perception-Based Assistive Mobile Robot System for Manipulation Tasks
Akhil Padmanabha et al., HAT: Head-Worn Assistive Teleoperation of Mobile Manipulators
AJ Alromaithi et al., Wearable Physical Therapy Robot for Hand Rehabilitation
Jianzhi Lyu et al., Efficient and Safe Human-Robot Collaboration for Assistive Assembly
Ethan Gordon et al., Balancing Flexibility and Precision in Assistive Food Manipulation
Laura Ferrante et al., Towards Adaptive Impedance Control for Upper-limb Prostheses
Mihain Dragusanu et al., The DressGripper: A Collaborative Gripper for Dressing Assistance
Basma B. Hasanen et al., Novel Supernumerary Robotic Limb based on Variable Stiffness Actuators for Hemiplegic Patients Assistance
Gabriele Abbate et al., Rehabilitation of Hand Motor Impairment Through Combined Virtual Reality and Wearable Robotics
Shengzeng Huo et al., One-Shot Safe Imitation from a Video for Assistive Fabric Manipulation
(University of Siena, Italy)
(University of York, the UK)
(Imperial College London, the UK)
(University of Mondragon, Spain)
(Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University, the US)
(German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany)
(TU Delft, the Netherlands)
(Honda Research Institute EU, Germany)
(Imperial College London, the UK)
The previous editions of this workshop were held at RSS2019 and ICRA2021. More details are available here.
We gratefully acknowledge the funding from the projects "THE - Tuscany Health Ecosystem" (PNRR, MUR, Italy), and SoftEnable (Horizon Europe GA No. 101070600).