S. Roccella

• Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

The leaf area index determines crop health and growth. Traditional methods for calculating it are time-consuming, destructive, costly, and limited to a scale. In this study, we automate the index estimation method using drone image data of grapevine plants and a machine learning model. Traditional feature extraction and deep learning methods are us...

Quality control in industry involves trained operators to manipulate and inspect metallic surfaces in order to identify, and eventually correct, manufacturing defects. These tasks are manually performed, and a poor performance ( e.g. , missing defects) leads to an increase of the costs and prolongation of the manufacturing time cycle. In this work...

Aerial drones are systems that have been largely employed in a number of civil applications, from surveillance and environmental monitoring to day-to-day service. In view of this, the 2020 Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) held in Abu Dhabi (UAE) was a competition that aimed to push forward the technological limits of the...

Digital techniques are a strategic tool to design new commercial products, reducing time and waste. This is particularly relevant for shoe manufacturing and, in particular, for high-heeled shoes, for which a trade-off between comfort and attractiveness is difficult to achieve. This paper offers a new set of tools to design high-heeled shoes that ex...

This paper reviews automated visual-based defect detection approaches applicable to various materials, such as metals, ceramics and textiles. In the first part of the paper, we present a general taxonomy of the different defects that fall in two classes: visible (e.g., scratches, shape error, etc.) and palpable (e.g., crack, bump, etc.) defects. Th...

Generalization ability in tactile sensing for robotic manipulation is a prerequisite to effectively perform tasks in ever-changing environments. In particular, performing dynamic tactile perception is currently beyond the ability of robotic devices. A biomimetic approach to achieve this dexterity is to develop machines combining compliant robotic m...

The neuro-robotics paradigm is a design approach, mainly aimed at the fusion of neuroscience and robotic competences and methods to design better robots that can act and interact closely with humans, in several application fields: rehabilitation and personal assistance, prosthetics, urban services, surgery, diagnostics, and environment monitoring.

This paper presents the design and experimental testing of the robotic elbow exoskeleton NEUROBOTICS Elbow Exoskeleton (NEUROExos). The design of NEUROExos focused on three solutions that enable its use for poststroke physical rehabilitation. First, double-shelled links allow an ergonomic physical human-robot interface and, consequently, a comforta...

This paper presents HANDEXOS, a novel wearable multiphalanges device for post-stroke rehabilitation. It was designed in order to allow for a functional and safe interaction with the user's hand by means of an anthropomorphic kinematics and the minimization of the human/exoskeleton rotational axes misalignment. This paper describes the mechatronic d...

The role of the mechanical properties of the neuromuscular system in motor control has been investigated for a long time in both human and animal subjects, mainly through the application of mechanical perturbations to the limb during natural movements and the observation of its corrective responses. These methods have provided a wealth of insight i...

This paper introduces NEUROExos, an elbow powered exoskeleton for rehabilitation. The NEUROExos is provided with three novel characteristics which address the major problems arising in rehabilitation robotics. A double shell link structure allows for a comfortable human-robot interaction, while a 4-DOF passive mechanism gives a perfect kinematic co...

Antagonistic Driven Compliant Joints (ADCJs) are object of great interest in current robotics research, representing one of the most widely applied solutions to develop human-like and safe joints for human-robot interaction. Providing the joint with "actively" adjustable hardware compliance, ADCJs have two distinctive features: (1) the joint is pow...

This paper introduces a novel exoskeleton device (HANDEXOS) for the rehabilitation of the hand for post-stroke patients. The nature of the impaired hand can be summarized in a limited extension, abduction and adduction leaving the fingers in a flexed position, so the exoskeleton goal is to train a safe extension motion from the typical closed posit...

This work describes the neuro-robotics paradigm: the fusion of neuroscience and robotics. The fusion of neuroscience and robotics, called neuro-robotics, is fundamental to develop robotic systems to be used in functional support, personal assistance and neuro-rehabilitation. While usually the robotic device is considered as a "tool" for neuroscient...

This paper presents the characterization of the position and stiffness open loop controller for the NEURARM bio-inspired joint. A novel antagonistic non-linear actuation scheme is proposed for the NEURARM platform, a 2 DoF planar robotic arm that has been developed to imitate the principal functional features of the human arm for planar movements....

It has been concluded from numerous neurophysiological studies that humans rely on detecting discrete mechanical events that occur when grasping, lifting and replacing an object, i.e., during a prototypical manipulation task. Such events represent transitions between phases of the evolving manipulation task such as object contact, lift-off, etc., a...

Case Study: the wearable orthosis for tremor assessment and suppression (WOTAS)Case Study: the CyberHandCase Study: the ergonomic EXARM exoskeletonCase Study: the NEUROBOTICS exoskeleton (NEUROExos)Case Study: an upper limb powered exoskeletonCase Study: soft exoskeleton for use in physiotherapy and trainingReferences

This paper presents the NEURARM, a novel robotic platform specifically designed for performing joint experiments between neuroscience and robotics. The NEURARM replicates the main functions and characteristics of the human arm during the execution of planar movements for reaching and catching a moving object. The NEURARM is a 2-d.o.f. planar roboti...

This paper presents the development of new transmission components and position controller of the NEURARM hydraulic actuation unit as critical components of a novel robotic arm specifically designed to perform joint experiments between neuroscience and robotics. NEURARM replicates the main functions and characteristics of the human arm during the e...

This paper proposes a biomechatronic approach to the design of an anthropomorphic artificial hand able to mimic the natural motion of the human fingers. The hand is conceived to be applied to prosthetics as well as to humanoid and personal robotics; hence, anthropomorphism is a fundamental requirement to be addressed both in the physical aspect and...

This article presents an overview of the current researches at the ARTS (Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems) Lab in the field of biorobotics and biomechatronics. The research areas investigated at ARTS Lab include: rehabilitation robotics, assistive robotics, bio-inspired robotics, bionics, humanoid robotics, human-machine interfaces, and ger...

A new method for the calibration of multi-axis, linear and redundant force sensors is presented. This new procedure, named device hyperplane characterization method, is inspired by the shape from motion method for it reduces the burden represented by the need for a huge number of force measurements, typical using least-squares methods, in order to...

Recent research in prosthetic hands aims at developing innovative cybernetic systems able to allow users to feel an artificial hand as part of their bodies by providing the tactile sensation of a natural hand. Such prostheses must be endowed with artificial proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensory systems as well as appropriate neural interfaces ab...

This paper presents the experimental analysis of a high shear sensitive 1.4mm3 three-axis force microsensor embedded in a soft, compliant and flexible packaging with minimum thickness of 2mm. The study is aimed at investigating the response of the tactile microsensor when it is stimulated with a combination of normal and shear loads. Experimental a...

A Personal Robot is expected to become popular in the future. It is required to be active in joint work and community life with humans. Therefore, we have been developing new mechanisms and functions for a humanoid robot that can express emotions and communicate naturally with humans. In this paper, we present the mechanical design of the Emotion E...

Personal robots, which are expected to become popular in the future, are required to be active in joint work and community life with humans. Such robots must have no bad physical or psychical effect on humans. The psychical effect of a robot on humans has been subjectively measured using questionnaires. However, it has not been objectively measured...

A three-axial silicon based force sensor with a volume less than 7mm3, developed for biomechanical measurements, has been characterized. Results obtained with two different experimental test benches are reported in this paper. High linearity and low hysteresis during sensor normal loading have been obtained by using a preliminary test bench. A seco...

Personal robots, which are expected to become popular in the near future, are required to be active in work and community life alongside humans. Therefore, we have been developing new mechanisms and functions in order to realize natural bilateral interaction by expressing emotions, behaviors and personality in a human-like manner. We have proposed...

The authors have been developing humanoid robots in order to develop new mechanisms and functions for a humanoid robot that has the ability to communicate naturally with a human by expressing human-like emotion. In 2004, we developed the emotion expression humanoid robot WE-4RII (Waseda Eye No.4 Refined II) by integrating the new humanoid robot han...

Among social infrastructure technologies, robot technology (RT) is expected to play an important role in solving the problems of both decrease of birth rate and increase of elderly people in the 21st century, specially (but not only) in Japan where the average age of the population is rising faster than any other nation in the world. In order to ac...

Among social infrastructure technologies, robot technology (RT) is expected to play an important role in solving the problems of both decrease of birth rate and increase of elderly people in the 21st century, specially but not only in Japan. In order to achieve this objective, the new generation of personal robots should be capable of a natural com...

The objective of the project described in this paper is the development of a cybernetic prosthesis, replicating as much as possible the sensory-motor capabilities of the natural hand. The human hand is not only an effective tool but also an ideal instrument to acquire information from the external environment. The development of a truly human-like...

This paper presents an underactuated artificial hand intended for functional replacement of the natural hand in upper limb amputees. The natural hand has three basic functionalities: grasping, manipulation and exploration. To accomplish the goal of restoring these capabilities by implanting an artificial hand, two fundamental steps are necessary: t...

Three different artificial hands have been designed in the framework of collaboration between the INAIL/RTR Centre and the Arts of Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSA) with the aim of developing a novel generation of prosthetic hands with increasing performance in restoring grasping functionalities in case of hand amputation. After having illus...

In this work the design of and the technology used for a silicon microfabricated three component force sensor for Prosthetic applications are presented. The sensor is designed in order to detect normal and shear forces by combining responses from four piezoresistors obtained by ion implantation in a tethered circular membrane. ne microdevice is fab...

Current prosthetic hands are basically simple grippers with one or two degrees of freedom, which barely restore the capability of the thumb-index pinch. Although most amputees consider this performance as acceptable for usual tasks, there is ample room for improvement by exploiting recent progresses in mechatronic design and technology. This paper...

The development of a prosthetic hand able to replicate as much as possible the grasping and sensory features of the natural hand represents an ambitious project for scientists. State of the art technology is still far to provide engineers with components with similar performance of their natural models, and active prosthetic hands can be only a pal...

In Japan, the average age of the population is rising faster than other nations in the world, due to decrease of birth rate and increase of elderly people. A possible solution to this problem is a new generation of personal robots capable of a natural communication with humans. In this sense, human hands play a fun- damental role in exploration, co...

The recent advances of humanoid robotics led to achievements in the development of human-like body parts and whole bodies, as well as of perceptual systems and schemes for behavior planning and learning. For this reason, a step further can be envisaged in the application of human-like robots as experimental tools in neuroscience, for carrying on ex...

A miniature robotic system has been designed and fabricated to perform in vivo mechanical characterization of soft tissues. The tissue tester employs a stepper motor controlled using microstepping techniques to prevent irregular rotation of motor shaft at lower rates, and a load cell to measure the reaction force of tissue under test. At the end of...

This paper presents first results in developing an anthropomorphic dexterous hand for a 2-years-old humanoid. As this robot is aimed to be a physical platform for cognition, the number of degrees of freedom of the upper part of the body has been maximized. The robotic hand has 20 DoFs and 9 motors to accomplish optimal grasping and manipulation. Ba...

The development of innovative exoskeletons for the upper limb requires a strong collaboration between robotics and neuroscience. The robotic system will be deeply coupled to the human user and the exoskeleton design should be based on the human model in terms of biomechanics, and control and learning strategies. This paper presents the preliminary...

The paper proposes a biomechatronic approach to the design of an anthropomorphic artificial hand. The hand is conceived to be applied to prosthetics and biomedical robotics; hence, anthropomorphism is a fundamental requirement to be addressed both in the physical aspect and in the functional behavior. As regards the hand mechanics, a cable-driven u...