The EU-funded MOZART project has released its final video: How MOZART Rethinks Robotic Manipulation | One Small Adaptation at a Time, presenting the results of its research on robots able to handle soft, fragile and highly variable products. Such products remain a challenge for conventional automation, which is why many tasks in sectors such as food processing are still carried out manually.

Instead of gripping objects, MOZART guides and supports them through a reconfigurable surface, an approach known as non-prehensile manipulation. Its AUTOMAT (Autonomous Manipulation using Morphing Modular Mats) combines ORA, the Origami Robotics Actuator developed at EPFL, whose modules fold and reshape in coordination, with COPESS, a soft sensing skin from the Italian Institute of Technology that detects pressure, contact and motion in real time. The concepts were tested in representative scenarios from the food-processing sector.

“The next step is to further develop, validate and scale these concepts beyond the laboratory, so that future robotic systems can operate safely and effectively in complex industrial environments,” says Kasper Støy, professor at the IT University of Copenhagen and MOZART coordinator. “MOZART has laid the foundations for a new generation of adaptive manipulation technologies.”

Watch the full video on YouTube and follow MOZART on LinkedIn.

Picture courtesy of Alexander Shatov, Unsplash