As service robots begin to be deployed to assist humans, it is important for them to be able to perform a skill as ubiquitous as pouring. Specifically, we focus on the task of pouring an exact amount of water without any environmental instrumentation, that is, using only the robot's own sensors to perform this task in a general way robustly. In our approach we use a simple PID controller which uses the measured change in weight of the held container to supervise the pour. Unlike previous methods which use specialized force-torque sensors at the robot wrist, we use our robot joint torque sensors and investigate the added benefit of tactile sensors at the fingertips. We train three estimators from data which regress the poured weight out of the source container and show that we can accurately pour within 10 ml of the target on average while being robust enough to pour at novel locations and with different grasps on the source container.

翻译：随着服务机器人逐步应用于辅助人类生活，掌握倾倒这一普遍技能至关重要。本研究聚焦于无需外部环境测量设备即可精确倾倒定量液体的任务，即仅依赖机器人自身传感器以鲁棒方式实现该通用操作。我们采用简单PID控制器，通过测量容器重量变化来监督倾倒过程。不同于以往在机器人腕部安装专用力/力矩传感器的方法，我们利用机器人关节扭矩传感器，并探究指尖触觉传感器带来的额外优势。基于数据训练了三种回归模型，用于估计源容器中的倾倒液体重量。实验表明，该方法平均倾倒精度可达10毫升以内，同时具备足够的鲁棒性，可在不同位置和不同抓取方式下完成倾倒操作。