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Reorienting objects by using supports is a practical yet challenging manipulation task. Owing to the intricate geometry of objects and the constrained feasible motions of the robot, multiple manipulation steps are required for object…
Location modeling, or determining where non-existing objects could feasibly appear in a scene, has the potential to benefit numerous computer vision tasks, from automatic object insertion to scene creation in virtual reality. Yet, this…
In many safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving and surgical robots, it is desirable to obtain prediction uncertainties from object detection modules to help support safe decision-making. Specifically, such modules need to…
State-of-the-art object pose estimation methods are prone to generating geometrically infeasible pose hypotheses. This problem is prevalent in dexterous manipulation, where estimated poses often intersect with the robotic hand or are not…
Robotic deformable-object manipulation is a challenge in the robotic industry because deformable objects have complicated and various object states. Predicting those object states and updating manipulation planning is time-consuming and…
In this paper we tackle the problem of deformable object manipulation through model-free visual reinforcement learning (RL). In order to circumvent the sample inefficiency of RL, we propose two key ideas that accelerate learning. First, we…
Most object manipulation strategies for robots are based on the assumption that the object is rigid (i.e., with fixed geometry) and the goal's details have been fully specified (e.g., the exact target pose). However, there are many tasks…
The risk of collision between resident space objects has significantly increased in recent years. As a result, spacecraft collision avoidance procedures have become an essential part of satellite operations. To ensure safe and effective…
Generalizable manipulation requires that robots be able to interact with novel objects and environment. This requirement makes manipulation extremely challenging as a robot has to reason about complex frictional interaction with uncertainty…
Constructing a diverse repertoire of manipulation skills in a scalable fashion remains an unsolved challenge in robotics. One way to address this challenge is with unstructured human play, where humans operate freely in an environment to…
Differentiable rendering has gained significant attention in the field of robotics, with differentiable robot rendering emerging as an effective paradigm for learning robotic actions from image-space supervision. However, the lack of…
We study an emerging problem named "grasping the invisible" in robotic manipulation, in which a robot is tasked to grasp an initially invisible target object via a sequence of pushing and grasping actions. In this problem, pushes are needed…
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.…
This paper proposes a simulation-based reinforcement learning algorithm for controlling systems with uncertain and varying system parameters. While simulators are useful for safely learning control policies, the reality gap remains a major…
Skilled robotic manipulation benefits from complex synergies between non-prehensile (e.g. pushing) and prehensile (e.g. grasping) actions: pushing can help rearrange cluttered objects to make space for arms and fingers; likewise, grasping…
Specifying tasks with videos is a powerful technique towards acquiring novel and general robot skills. However, reasoning over mechanics and dexterous interactions can make it challenging to scale learning contact-rich manipulation. In this…
Several robot manipulation tasks are extremely sensitive to variations of the physical properties of the manipulated objects. One such task is manipulating objects by using gravity or arm accelerations, increasing the importance of mass,…
Enabling autonomous robots to interact in unstructured environments with dynamic objects requires manipulation capabilities that can deal with clutter, changes, and objects' variability. This paper presents a comparison of different…
We extend the learning from demonstration paradigm by providing a method for learning unknown constraints shared across tasks, using demonstrations of the tasks, their cost functions, and knowledge of the system dynamics and control…
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,…