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Virginia Tech

Force Feedback for Reliable Robotic Door Opening

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Opening a door is still a hard problem in robotics. Many robotic manipulators use open-loop position control to open doors, which reduces reusability and reliability in the face of slight differences or sensor errors. Many others use force feedback or impedance control but skip past the problem of grabbing the handle, which could lead to failures due to sensor errors. This research assumes that perception is faulty, and uses joint-level force feedback to probe the location of the door and its handle before attempting to open it. The resulting control strategy is at least 33% faster than the open-loop control system it replaces, and had an 83% success rate during testing in place of the previous method's 60% success rate.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Mechanical Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Mechanical Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Wittenstein, Nikolaus Adrian
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Lattimer, Brian Y.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Leonessa, Alexander
  • Furukawa, Tomonari

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:6203
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/56584

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Wittenstein, Nikolaus Adrian. Force Feedback for Reliable Robotic Door Opening. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/56584