Core Concepts
A method for high-precision placement of well-plates onto holders for laboratory automation, utilizing tactile sensing for pose estimation and sliding contact to align the well-plate with the holder's raised groove.
Abstract
The paper presents a method for precisely placing well-plates onto holders for laboratory automation tasks. The key components are:
Pose estimation of the grasped well-plate using tactile sensors (GelSight Mini) to handle uncertainties in the holder's detected pose.
Sliding the well-plate onto the holder while maintaining contact with the raised groove, and estimating the groove's orientation to enable accurate alignment.
This approach addresses three main challenges:
Uncertainty in the detected pose of the holder due to errors in marker recognition.
The requirement for millimeter to sub-millimeter level accuracy due to the shallow height and small clearance of the holder's raised groove.
The lightweight holder being susceptible to movement from external forces.
The authors demonstrate a high success rate for the well-plate placing task, even under noisy observation of the holder's pose. The use of tactile sensing and the sliding placement method enable precise control and prevent displacement of the holder during the process.