Related papers: A Convex-Combinatorial Model for Planar Caging

Finding robot poses and trajectories represents a foundational aspect of robot motion planning. Despite decades of research, efficiently and robustly addressing these challenges is still difficult. Existing approaches are often plagued by…

The construction of highly incoherent frames, sequences of vectors placed on the unit hyper sphere of a finite dimensional Hilbert space with low correlation between them, has proven very difficult. Algorithms proposed in the past have…

This paper presents a fixturing strategy for regrasping that does not require a physical fixture. To regrasp an object in a gripper, a robot pushes the object against external contact/s in the environment such that the external contact…

We present a probabilistic approach for building, on the fly, 3-D models of unknown objects while being manipulated by a robot. We specifically consider manipulation tasks in piles of clutter that contain previously unseen objects. Most…

We present a self-contained, soft robotic hand composed of soft pneumatic actuator modules that are equipped with strain and pressure sensing. We show how this data can be used to discern whether a grasp was successful. Co-locating sensing…

We begin this paper by presenting our approach to robot manipulation, which emphasizes the benefits of making contact with the world across the entire manipulator. We assume that low contact forces are benign, and focus on the development…

The current dominant paradigm for robotic manipulation involves two separate stages: manipulator design and control. Because the robot's morphology and how it can be controlled are intimately linked, joint optimization of design and control…

We construct a Virtual Kinematic Chain (VKC) that readily consolidates the kinematics of the mobile base, the arm, and the object to be manipulated in mobile manipulations. Accordingly, a mobile manipulation task is represented by altering…

This paper presents a convex approach to the optimization of a cooperative rendezvous, that is, the problem of two distant spacecraft that simultaneously operate to get closer. Convex programming guarantees convergence towards the optimal…

Despite the attention that the problem of path planning for tethered robots has garnered in the past few decades, the approaches proposed to solve it typically rely on a discrete representation of the configuration space and do not exploit…

How should a robot direct active vision so as to ensure reliable grasping? We answer this question for the case of dexterous grasping of unfamiliar objects. By dexterous grasping we simply mean grasping by any hand with more than two…

In robotics, simulation has the potential to reduce design time and costs, and lead to a more robust engineered solution and a safer development process. However, the use of simulators is predicated on the availability of good models. This…

The process of calibrating computer models of natural phenomena is essential for applications in the physical sciences, where plenty of domain knowledge can be embedded into simulations and then calibrated against real observations. Current…

In-hand object manipulation is an important capability for dexterous manipulation. In this paper, we introduce a modeling and planning framework for in-hand object reconfiguration, focusing on frictional patch contacts between the robot's…

Grasping target objects is a fundamental skill for robotic manipulation, but in cluttered environments with stacked or occluded objects, a single-step grasp is often insufficient. To address this, previous work has introduced pushing as an…

Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current…

Highly constrained manipulation tasks continue to be challenging for autonomous robots as they require high levels of precision, typically less than 1mm, which is often incompatible with what can be achieved by traditional perception…

For robot manipulation, both the controller and end-effector design are crucial. Soft grippers are generalizable by deforming to different geometries, but designing such a gripper and finding its grasp pose remains challenging. In this…

We present a convex formulation of compliant frictional contact and a robust, performant method to solve it in practice. By analytically eliminating contact constraints, we obtain an unconstrained convex problem. Our solver has proven…

A new kind of six degree-of-freedom teaching manipulator without actuators is designed, for recording and conveniently setting a trajectory of an industrial robot. The device requires good gravity balance and operating force performance to…