Related papers: Implicit learning of object geometry by reducing c…
This paper proposes a novel approach to performing in-grasp manipulation: the problem of moving an object with reference to the palm from an initial pose to a goal pose without breaking or making contacts. Our method to perform in-grasp…
Robotic tasks often require motions with complex geometric structures. We present an approach to learn such motions from a limited number of human demonstrations by exploiting the regularity properties of human motions e.g. stability,…
Locomotion by shape changes (spermatozoon swimming, snake slithering, bird flapping) or gas expulsion (rocket firing) is assumed to require environmental interaction, due to conservation of momentum. As first noted in (Wisdom, 2003) and…
This paper addresses the problem of simultaneously exploring an unknown object to model its shape, using tactile sensors on robotic fingers, while also improving finger placement to optimise grasp stability. In many situations, a robot will…
After a grasp has been planned, if the object orientation changes, the initial grasp may not have to be modified to accommodate the orientation change. For example, rotation of a cylinder by any amount around its centerline does not change…
The ability to robustly grasp a variety of objects is essential for dexterous robots. In this paper, we present a framework for zero-shot dynamic dexterous grasping using single-view visual inputs, designed to be resilient to various…
We demonstrate spontaneous bidirectional motion of droplets on liquid infused surfaces in the presence of a topographical gradient, in which the droplets can move either toward the denser or the sparser solid fraction area. Our analytical…
Geodesic distance serves as a reliable means of measuring distance in nonlinear spaces, and such nonlinear manifolds are prevalent in the current multimodal learning. In these scenarios, some samples may exhibit high similarity, yet they…
In this work we are interested in the characterization of curves that belong to a given surface. To the best of our knowledge, there is no known general solution to this problem. Indeed, a solution is only available for a few examples:…
The current state-of-the-art hand gesture recognition methodologies heavily rely in the use of machine learning. However there are scenarios that machine learning cannot be applied successfully, for example in situations where data is…
Robotic grasping of house-hold objects has made remarkable progress in recent years. Yet, human grasps are still difficult to synthesize realistically. There are several key reasons: (1) the human hand has many degrees of freedom (more than…
For robots to work alongside humans and perform in unstructured environments, they must learn new motion skills and adapt them to unseen situations on the fly. This demands learning models that capture relevant motion patterns, while…
Grasping an object is a matter of first moving a prehensile organ at some position in the world, and then managing the contact relationship between the prehensile organ and the object. Once the contact relationship has been established and…
The present paper deals with a study of curves on a smooth surface whose position vector always lies in the tangent plane of the surface and it is proved that such curves remain invariant under isometry of surfaces. It is also shown that…
Hands are dexterous and highly versatile manipulators that are central to how humans interact with objects and their environment. Consequently, modeling realistic hand-object interactions, including the subtle motion of individual fingers,…
In this thesis we address two related aspects of visual object recognition: the use of motion information, and the use of internal supervision, to help unsupervised learning. These two aspects are inter-related in the current study, since…
We consider some basic principles of fluid-induced lubrication at soft interfaces. In particular, we show how the presence of a soft substrate leads to an increase in the physical separation between surfaces sliding past each other. By…
Object shape provides important information for robotic manipulation; for instance, selecting an effective grasp depends on both the global and local shape of the object of interest, while reaching into clutter requires accurate surface…
Recent studies have highlighted the sensitivity of active matter to boundaries and their geometries. Here we develop a general theory for the dynamics and statistics of active particles on curved surfaces and illustrate it on two examples.…
Special curves and surfaces have an important place in mathematics, engineering and other fields of science. Loxodromes are special curves which cut all meridians on the Earth's surface at a constant angle and they are very popular in…