Related papers: Learning to Slide Unknown Objects with Differentia…
This paper addresses the problem of pushing manipulation with nonholonomic mobile robots. Pushing is a fundamental skill that enables robots to move unwieldy objects that cannot be grasped. We propose a stable pushing method that maintains…
Model-based controllers using a linearized model around the system's equilibrium point is a common approach in the control of a wheeled humanoid due to their less computational load and ease of stability analysis. However, controlling a…
In autonomous driving applications a critical challenge is to identify action to take to avoid an obstacle on collision course. For example, when a heavy object is suddenly encountered it is critical to stop the vehicle or change the lane…
Orienting objects is a critical component in the automation of many packing and assembly tasks. We present an algorithm to orient novel objects given a depth image of the object in its current and desired orientation. We formulate a…
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…
Motion planning under uncertainty is one of the main challenges in developing autonomous driving vehicles. In this work, we focus on the uncertainty in sensing and perception, resulted from a limited field of view, occlusions, and sensing…
In recent years, a number of tools have become available that recover the underlying control policy from constrained movements. However, few have explicitly considered learning the constraints of the motion and ways to cope with unknown…
We consider the problem of sorting a densely cluttered pile of unknown objects using a robot. This yet unsolved problem is relevant in the robotic waste sorting business. By extending previous active learning approaches to grasping, we show…
Understanding physical phenomena is a key competence that enables humans and animals to act and interact under uncertain perception in previously unseen environments containing novel object and their configurations. Developmental psychology…
This work deals with a practical everyday problem: stable object placement on flat surfaces starting from unknown initial poses. Common object-placing approaches require either complete scene specifications or extrinsic sensor measurements,…
We study the problem of robotic stacking with objects of complex geometry. We propose a challenging and diverse set of such objects that was carefully designed to require strategies beyond a simple "pick-and-place" solution. Our method is a…
Many robots utilize commercial force/torque sensors to identify inertial properties of unknown objects. However, such sensors can be difficult to apply to small-sized robots due to their weight, size, and cost. In this paper, we propose a…
Robots are increasingly expected to manipulate objects in ever more unstructured environments where the object properties have high perceptual uncertainty from any single sensory modality. This directly impacts successful object…
Gradient-based methods enable efficient search capabilities in high dimensions. However, in order to apply them effectively in offline optimization paradigms such as offline Reinforcement Learning (RL) or Imitation Learning (IL), we require…
Pushing is a motion primitive useful to handle objects that are too large, too heavy, or too cluttered to be grasped. It is at the core of much of robotic manipulation, in particular when physical interaction is involved. It seems…
Large intra-class variation is the result of changes in multiple object characteristics. Images, however, only show the superposition of different variable factors such as appearance or shape. Therefore, learning to disentangle and…
We introduce latent intuitive physics, a transfer learning framework for physics simulation that can infer hidden properties of fluids from a single 3D video and simulate the observed fluid in novel scenes. Our key insight is to use latent…
We consider the problem of a robot learning the mechanical properties of objects through physical interaction with the object, and introduce a practical, data-efficient approach for identifying the motion models of these objects. The…
Dexterous in-hand manipulation (IHM) for arbitrary objects is challenging due to the rich and subtle contact process. Variable-friction manipulation is an alternative approach to dexterity, previously demonstrating robust and versatile 2D…
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…