Jamdagni and Jia advance robotic slicing in ICRA 2021 paper

figure of knife counting and robot end effector, F/T sensor, knife, and object

ISU Department of Computer Science authors have had a paper accepted to the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.  According to ICRA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation is one of the premier conferences covering advances in robotics.  The acceptance rate this year was 48%, although the conference is known for its submissions commonly being self-selective. ICRA 2021 will be held in Xi'an, China, from May 30 to June 5, 2021.

The paper, co-authored by Ph.D. Student Prajjwal Jamdagni and Professor Yan-Bin Jia is titled "Robotic Slicing of Fruits and Vegetables: Modeling the Effects of Fracture Toughness and Knife Geometry." It was based on their research efforts that lasted nearly 18 months. According to the paper's abstract, "Slicing is an important skill for a robot to learn as it is more efficient and results in less deformation in comparison with cutting by pressing. Cutting experiments with foods have indicated that the ease of slicing is caused by a decrease in fracture toughness. In this paper, we formally characterize this decrease based on the work needed to maintain the critical strain for fracture. Forces generating fracture and deformation and overcoming friction are predicted using the finite element method (FEM) and based on fracture mechanics. Extending our previous work on cutting by pressing with a straight knife edge, we model general slicing actions and knife geometry (i.e., a curved edge). Experiments over potatoes and eggplants have demonstrated accurate modeling of the overall cutting force during slicing, which could be leveraged for control of cutting by the robot to demonstrate human-level skills in the near future."

Congratulations to the authors!