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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…
It is challenging for humans -- particularly those living with physical disabilities -- to control high-dimensional, dexterous robots. Prior work explores learning embedding functions that map a human's low-dimensional inputs (e.g., via a…
Dexterous in-hand manipulation is an essential skill of production and life. However, the highly stiff and mutable nature of contacts limits real-time contact detection and inference, degrading the performance of model-based methods.…
Inverse design of slender elastic structures underlies a wide range of applications in computer graphics, flexible electronics, biomedical devices, and soft robotics. Traditional optimization-based approaches, however, are often orders of…
Model reduction of high-dimensional dynamical systems alleviates computational burdens faced in various tasks from design optimization to model predictive control. One popular model reduction approach is based on projecting the governing…
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…
We have seen much recent progress in rigid object manipulation, but interaction with deformable objects has notably lagged behind. Due to the large configuration space of deformable objects, solutions using traditional modelling approaches…
In various surgical procedures, regions of interest (ROIs) such as organs or lesions are often occluded by overlying tissues, requiring surgeons to achieve adequate exposure for precise intervention. However, the irregular geometry,…
Manipulation of elastoplastic objects like dough often involves topological changes such as splitting and merging. The ability to accurately predict these topological changes that a specific action might incur is critical for planning…
The manipulation of flexible objects such as cables, wires and fresh food items by robot hands forms a special challenge in robot grasp mechanics. This paper considers the steering of flexible linear objects in planar environments by two…
Wearable and Assistive robotics for human grasp support are broadly either tele-operated robotic arms or act through orthotic control of a paralyzed user's hand. Such devices require correct orientation for successful and efficient…
The deformable linear objects (DLOs) are common in both industrial and domestic applications, such as wires, cables, ropes. Because of its highly deformable nature, it is difficult for the robot to reproduce human's dexterous skills on…
A particular type of assistive robots designed for physical interaction with objects could play an important role assisting with mobility and fall prevention in healthcare facilities. Autonomous mobile manipulation presents a hurdle prior…
Grasping deformable objects is not well researched due to the complexity in modelling and simulating the dynamic behavior of such objects. However, with the rapid development of physics-based simulators that support soft bodies, the…
Planning for robotic manipulation requires reasoning about the changes a robot can affect on objects. When such interactions can be modelled analytically, as in domains with rigid objects, efficient planning algorithms exist. However, in…
We introduce Embed to Control (E2C), a method for model learning and control of non-linear dynamical systems from raw pixel images. E2C consists of a deep generative model, belonging to the family of variational autoencoders, that learns to…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
We demonstrate model-based, visual robot manipulation of linear deformable objects. Our approach is based on a state-space representation of the physical system that the robot aims to control. This choice has multiple advantages, including…
Direct mesh editing and deformation are key components in the geometric modeling and animation pipeline. Mesh editing methods are typically framed as optimization problems combining user-specified vertex constraints with a regularizer that…
Tendon-driven continuum robots have been gaining popularity in medical applications due to their ability to curve around complex anatomical structures, potentially reducing the invasiveness of surgery. However, accurate modeling is required…