Q-bot is the human-sized carriage robot for lifting heavy weight objects of in-house logistics, such as storehouse and convenience store. The main feature of Q-bot is the adhesion mechanism beneath the foot, called the turnover prevention Universal Vacuum Gripper (in short TP UVG) that holds its body for turnover prevention and self-weight compensation. Turnover prevention is one of the key technologies of in-house logistic robot for effective use of it. Self-weight compensation is another clue for the robot to achieve the labor work in narrow space. TP UVG is achieved both functions by adhering to uneven ground. The other function of Q-bot is multiple objects graspability based on two-sized Universal Vacuum Gripper by dual-armed manipulation. Q-bot also has omnidirectional movability based on mecanum wheels. In this research, we will report on the development of Q-bot and experiments to prevent the robot from falling when it grabs a heavy object while attached to the ground. We also report Q-bot demonstrations of Future Convenience-Store Challenge in the World Robot Summit 2018.

In this paper, the powder of Universal Vacuum Gripper (in short, UVG) is included in stocking and filled into UVG. Filling the stockings prevents the powder from being biased vertically. In addition, by separating the powder in the stocking, the adhesion performance is improved. We evaluated the effects of division members for adhesion performance.

In this paper, a humanoid robot, named Q-bot is proposed, which is used in convenience stores in the future. The Q-bot is designed as a small sized crane based on universal vacuum gripper of its foot sole, which holds its body by vacuum force as a compensation of its small weight. Moreover, the foot vacuum prevents Q-bot from its fall over by reaction force of works. such as driling a wall. The robot has several functions of dual-armed manipulation and omni-directional movability, and the tips of arms and a foot equipped with a universal vacuum gripper for adhering to uneven surface. This paper reports the development status of the robot and the experiment which is possible to prevent the robot from falling when the robot adhering to the ground, grips heavy objects.

A mobile dual-arm robot with universal vacuum grippers (UVG) for performing stocking and disposing tasks was developed. The robot grasps items in the tasks by using UVGs whose surface adapts to the various shapes of the items. A selection algorithm that determines whether the robot should use one or both manipulators to arrange an item was also developed. A 'reachable-grasp pose' is defined as a pose in which the robot's UVG can easily place an item with a target attitude if it grasps the item. By using the selection algorithm, the robot re-grasps the item by adopting the reachable-grasp pose if the two manipulators do not collide when one is in the current grasp pose and the other is in the reachable-grasp pose. The robot system won the third prize of the Future Convenience Store Challenge 2018. In experiments on stocking and disposing tasks, the robot system achieved success rates of 100% for the stocking task and 80% for the disposing task. We believe that the results of this study will help researchers to develop a robot system for not only the stocking and disposing tasks but also other tasks in convenience stores (like customer interaction).