Related papers: Data-Augmented Contact Model for Rigid Body Simula…
A key ingredient to achieving intelligent behavior is physical understanding that equips robots with the ability to reason about the effects of their actions in a dynamic environment. Several methods have been proposed to learn dynamics…
We introduce a model of friction between two contacting (stationary or co-sliding) rough surfaces, each comprising a random ensemble of polydisperse hemispherical bumps. In the simplest version of the model, the bumps experience on contact…
General robot manipulation requires the handling of previously unseen objects. Learning a physically accurate model at test time can provide significant benefits in data efficiency, predictability, and reuse between tasks. Tactile sensing…
We propose a novel fast and accurate simulation framework for contact-intensive tight-tolerance robotic assembly tasks. The key components of our framework are as follows: 1) data-driven contact point clustering with a certain…
Force modulation of robotic manipulators has been extensively studied for several decades. However, it is not yet commonly used in safety-critical applications due to a lack of accurate interaction contact modeling and weak performance…
This study investigates the application of deep residual networks for predicting the dynamics of interacting three-dimensional rigid bodies. We present a framework combining a 3D physics simulator implemented in C++ with a deep learning…
Contact-rich manipulation tasks with stiff frictional elements like connector insertion are difficult to model with rigid-body simulators. In this work, we propose a new approach for modeling these environments by learning a quasi-static…
Accurate physical simulation is crucial for the development and validation of control algorithms in robotic systems. Recent works in Reinforcement Learning (RL) take notably advantage of extensive simulations to produce efficient robot…
Whether rigid or compliant, contact interactions are inherent to robot motions, enabling them to move or manipulate things. Contact interactions result from complex physical phenomena, that can be mathematically cast as Nonlinear…
Generating intelligent robot behavior in contact-rich settings is a research problem where zeroth-order methods currently prevail. A major contributor to the success of such methods is their robustness in the face of non-smooth and…
Close and continuous interaction with rich contacts is a crucial aspect of human activities (e.g. hugging, dancing) and of interest in many domains like activity recognition, motion prediction, character animation, etc. However, acquiring…
Robotic manipulation in unstructured environments requires planners to reason jointly about free-space motion and sustained, frictional contact with the environment. Existing (local) planning and simulation frameworks typically separate…
Frictional sliding contact in hydrodynamic environments can be found in a range of engineering applications. Accurate modeling requires an integrated numerical framework capable of resolving large relative motions, multiphase interactions,…
Contact modeling plays a central role in motion planning, simulation, and control of legged robots, as legged locomotion is realized through contact. The two prevailing approaches to model the contact consider rigid and compliant premise at…
An exact transformation method is introduced that reduces the governing equations of a continuum structure coupled to strong nonlinearities to a low dimensional equation with memory. The method is general and well suited to problems with…
Simulation of contact and friction dynamics is an important basis for control- and learning-based algorithms. However, the numerical difficulties of contact interactions pose a challenge for robust and efficient simulators. A…
A general framework for performing event-driven simulations of systems with semi-flexible or rigid bodies interacting under impulsive torques and forces is outlined. Two different approaches are presented. In the first, the dynamics and…
Contact-based motion planning for manipulation, object exploration or balancing often requires finding sequences of fixed and sliding contacts and planning the transition from one contact in the environment to another. However, most…
We outline a phenomenological model to assess friction at the interface between two bodies in mutual contact. Although the approach is general, the application inspiring the approach is the Discrete Element Method. The kinematics of the…
Differentiable simulators promise to improve sample efficiency in robot learning by providing analytic gradients of the system dynamics. Yet, their application to contact-rich tasks like locomotion is complicated by the inherently…