The system – developed by researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) Department of Computer Science and computing company Nvidia – could also simulate cutting through human tissue, offering potential applications in surgical robotics.
Many researchers in the past have had trouble creating intelligent robots that replicate cutting. One challenge, they’ve argued, is that no two objects are the same, and current robotic cutting systems struggle with a variation.
To overcome this, the team devised a unique approach to simulate cutting by introducing springs between the two halves of the object being cut, represented by a mesh. These springs are weakened over time in proportion to the force exerted by the knife on the mesh.
“What makes ours a special simulator is that it is ‘differentiable’, so it can help us automatically tune these simulation parameters from real-world measurements,” said Eric Heiden, a computer science student at USC...