Related papers: Planning for Multi-stage Forceful Manipulation

Thanks to the latest advances in learning and robotics, domestic robots are beginning to enter homes, aiming to execute household chores autonomously. However, robots still struggle to perform autonomous manipulation tasks in open-ended…

This paper presents a novel concept to support physically impaired humans in daily object manipulation tasks with a robot. Given a user's manipulation sequence, we propose a predictive model that uniquely casts the user's sequential…

In dynamic environments, robots often encounter constrained movement trajectories when manipulating objects with specific properties, such as doors. Therefore, applying the appropriate force is crucial to prevent damage to both the robots…

Tool use is an important milestone in the evolution of intelligence. In this paper, we investigate different modes of tool use that emerge in a reaching and dragging task. In this task, a jointed arm with a gripper must grab a tool (T, I,…

This paper addresses non-prehensile rearrangement planning problems where a robot is tasked to rearrange objects among obstacles on a planar surface. We present an efficient planning algorithm that is designed to impose few assumptions on…

Robot arms should be able to learn new tasks. One framework here is reinforcement learning, where the robot is given a reward function that encodes the task, and the robot autonomously learns actions to maximize its reward. Existing…

The increasing presence of robots alongside humans, such as in human-robot teams in manufacturing, gives rise to research questions about the kind of behaviors people prefer in their robot counterparts. We term actions that support…

Reinforcement learning requires manual specification of a reward function to learn a task. While in principle this reward function only needs to specify the task goal, in practice reinforcement learning can be very time-consuming or even…

To safely and efficiently extract an object from the clutter, this paper presents a bimanual manipulation planner in which one hand of the robot is used to slide the target object out of the clutter while the other hand is used to support…

The ability of robots to navigate through doors is crucial for their effective operation in indoor environments. Consequently, extensive research has been conducted to develop robots capable of opening specific doors. However, the diverse…

We describe an algorithm for motion planning based on expert demonstrations of a skill. In order to teach robots to perform complex object manipulation tasks that can generalize robustly to new environments, we must (1) learn a…

When humans perform contact-rich manipulation tasks, customized tools are often necessary to simplify the task. For instance, we use various utensils for handling food, such as knives, forks and spoons. Similarly, robots may benefit from…

Catching objects in flight (i.e., thrown objects) is a common daily skill for humans, yet it presents a significant challenge for robots. This task requires a robot with agile and accurate motion, a large spatial workspace, and the ability…

Non-prehensile planar manipulation, including pushing and press-and-slide, is critical for diverse robotic tasks, but notoriously challenging due to hybrid contact mechanics, under-actuation, and asymmetric friction limits that…

Many tasks in human environments require performing a sequence of navigation and manipulation steps involving objects. In unstructured human environments, the location and configuration of the objects involved often change in unpredictable…

Dynamic motions are a key feature of robotic arms, enabling them to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Soft continuum manipulators do not currently consider dynamic parameters when operating in task space. This shortcoming makes…

Enabling multi-fingered robots to grasp and manipulate objects with human-like dexterity is especially challenging during the dynamic, continuous hand-object interactions. Closed-loop feedback control is essential for dexterous hands to…

This paper presents an approach to in-hand manipulation planning that exploits the mechanics of alternating sticking contact. Particularly, we consider the problem of manipulating a grasped object using external pushes for which the pusher…

Assistive robotic arms enable users with physical disabilities to perform everyday tasks without relying on a caregiver. Unfortunately, the very dexterity that makes these arms useful also makes them challenging to teleoperate: the robot…

Sequential multi-step cloth manipulation is a challenging problem in robotic manipulation, requiring a robot to perceive the cloth state and plan a sequence of chained actions leading to the desired state. Most previous works address this…