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One of the challenges of full autonomy is to have a robot capable of manipulating its current environment to achieve another environment configuration. This paper is a step towards this challenge, focusing on the visual understanding of the…

Autonomous agents embedded in a physical environment need the ability to recognize objects and their properties from sensory data. Such a perceptual ability is often implemented by supervised machine learning models, which are pre-trained…

This paper proposes a novel learning-free three-stage method that predicts grasping poses, enabling robots to pick up and transfer previously unseen objects. Our method first identifies potential structures that can afford the action of…

This work explores the use of topological tools for achieving effective non-prehensile manipulation in cluttered, constrained workspaces. In particular, it proposes the use of persistent homology as a guiding principle in identifying the…

For mobile robots, navigating cluttered or dynamic environments often necessitates non-prehensile manipulation, particularly when faced with objects that are too large, irregular, or fragile to grasp. The unpredictable behavior and varying…

Nowadays robots play an increasingly important role in our daily life. In human-centered environments, robots often encounter piles of objects, packed items, or isolated objects. Therefore, a robot must be able to grasp and manipulate…

The ability of robots to grasp novel objects has industry applications in e-commerce order fulfillment and home service. Data-driven grasping policies have achieved success in learning general strategies for grasping arbitrary objects.…

In this work, we present a novel algorithm to perform spill-free handling of open-top liquid-filled containers that operates in cluttered environments. By allowing liquid-filled containers to be tilted at higher angles and enabling motion…

This paper presents a new self-supervised system for learning to detect novel and previously unseen categories of objects in images. The proposed system receives as input several unlabeled videos of scenes containing various objects. The…

This paper considers the problem of rearrangement planning, i.e finding a sequence of manipulation actions that displace multiple objects from an initial configuration to a given goal configuration. Rearrangement is a critical skill for…

Instance segmentation of unknown objects from images is regarded as relevant for several robot skills including grasping, tracking and object sorting. Recent results in computer vision have shown that large hand-labeled datasets enable high…

In this paper, we investigate the problem of grasping novel objects in unstructured environments. To address this problem, consideration of the object geometry, reachability and force closure analysis are required. We propose a framework…

Extrinsic manipulation, a technique that enables robots to leverage extrinsic resources for object manipulation, presents practical yet challenging scenarios. Particularly in the context of extrinsic manipulation on a supporting plane,…

Robotic manipulation can be formulated as inducing a sequence of spatial displacements: where the space being moved can encompass an object, part of an object, or end effector. In this work, we propose the Transporter Network, a simple…

We use static object data to improve success detection for stacking objects on and nesting objects in one another. Such actions are necessary for certain robotics tasks, e.g., clearing a dining table or packing a warehouse bin. However,…

Many fabric handling and 2D deformable material tasks in homes and industry require singulating layers of material such as opening a bag or arranging garments for sewing. In contrast to methods requiring specialized sensing or end…

Flexible pick-and-place is a fundamental yet challenging task within robotics, in particular due to the need of an object model for a simple target pose definition. In this work, the robot instead learns to pick-and-place objects using…

We present a research picking prototype related to our company's industrial waste sorting application. The goal of the prototype is to be as autonomous as possible and it both calibrates itself and improves its picking with minimal human…

In complex scenarios where typical pick-and-place techniques are insufficient, often non-prehensile manipulation can ensure that a robot is able to fulfill its task. However, non-prehensile manipulation is challenging due to its…

Manipulation of objects by exploiting their contact with the environment can enhance both the dexterity and payload capability of robotic manipulators. A common way to manipulate heavy objects beyond the payload capability of a robot is to…