Robot arm opens doors for wheelchair users
From: New Scientist Magazine - 11/24/2009
By: Jeff Hecht

Opening a door is trickier for robots than you might expect, but a gripper
designed to help wheelchair users seems to have cracked the problem. 

Read the entire article and view a video at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427355.400-robot-arm-opens-doors-for-wheelchair-users.html

Links:
Erin Rapacki
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erapacki

The Design of an Underactuated Wheelchair-Mounted Robotic Arm to Unlatch
  Door Knobs and Handles
http://users.wpi.edu/~nems/Rapacki.pdf

Door Opening Robot Arm (DORA) makes headlines!
http://robotics.cs.uml.edu/home/news/single-news-article/article/door-opening-robot-arm-dora-featured-in-new-scientist-popular-science-and-make/

Door-opening robotic arm for wheelchair users developed
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/door-opening-robotic-arm-for-wheelchair-users-developed_100279698.html

Robotic Arm Opens Doors For the Wheelchair-Bound
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-11/robotic-arm-opens-doors-wheelchair-bound

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Robotic Gripper Unlatches Doors
From: NASA Tech Briefs Insider - 12/16/2009

Students at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell have developed a
robotic gripper designed to unlatch door knobs and handles. The gripper,
recently presented at an IEEE Robotics conference in Woburn, MA, was
developed as part of a research project named DORA (Door Opening Robot Arm).
The project's goal is to develop a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm that can
open doors at a lower cost than existing multi-purpose robot arms.  

The device uses a collet-cone end effector for compliance gripping and
centering, and a single motor driving a set of gears to control gripping and
twisting. A slip clutch enables the gripper to hold and turn the knob at the
same time it is pushing or pulling the door.  

In tests, the gripper was able to open doors with 14 different handles in 85
percent of tests involving pushing the door, and 65 percent of tests pulling
the door. Unlike current robotic arms, the DORA project gripper does not
require the addition of cameras or complex sensors, making it less costly to
manufacture. 

Link:
Door Opening Robotic Arm
http://robotics.cs.uml.edu/research/current-research/door-opening-robotic-arm-dora/