Related papers: OmniHang: Learning to Hang Arbitrary Objects using…

This paper is concerned with learning transferable contact models for aerial manipulation tasks. We investigate a contact-based approach for enabling unmanned aerial vehicles with cable-suspended passive grippers to compute the attach…

Pushing is an essential non-prehensile manipulation skill used for tasks ranging from pre-grasp manipulation to scene rearrangement, reasoning about object relations in the scene, and thus pushing actions have been widely studied in…

Many high precision (dis)assembly tasks are still being performed by humans, whereas this is an ideal opportunity for automation. This paper provides a framework which enables a non-expert human operator to teach a robotic arm to do complex…

Robotic grasping is facing a variety of real-world uncertainties caused by non-static object states, unknown object properties, and cluttered object arrangements. The difficulty of grasping increases with the presence of more uncertainties,…

Learning to manipulate objects efficiently, particularly those involving sustained contact (e.g., pushing, sliding) and articulated parts (e.g., drawers, doors), presents significant challenges. Traditional methods, such as robot-centric…

For many applications, robots will need to be incrementally trained to recognize the specific objects needed for an application. This paper presents a practical system for incrementally training a robot to recognize different object…

Handling objects with unknown or changing masses is a common challenge in robotics, often leading to errors or instability if the control system cannot adapt in real-time. In this paper, we present a novel approach that enables a…

Humans excel at acquiring knowledge through observation. For example, we can learn to use new tools by watching demonstrations. This skill is fundamental for intelligent systems to interact with the world. A key step to acquire this skill…

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…

The choice of a grasp plays a critical role in the success of downstream manipulation tasks. Consider a task of placing an object in a cluttered scene; the majority of possible grasps may not be suitable for the desired placement. In this…

An understanding of the nature of objects could help robots to solve both high-level abstract tasks and improve performance at lower-level concrete tasks. Although deep learning has facilitated progress in image understanding, a robot's…

Humans are adept at learning new tasks by watching a few instructional videos. On the other hand, robots that learn new actions either require a lot of effort through trial and error, or use expert demonstrations that are challenging to…

Industrial robotic object handling often involves boxes and packages whose mass and center of mass are not known in advance. These uncertainties affect the force--moment balance required for stable lifting, and improper regulation of…

Learning to act in unstructured environments, such as cluttered piles of objects, poses a substantial challenge for manipulation robots. We present a novel neural network-based approach that separates unknown objects in clutter by selecting…

Controlling the shape of deformable linear objects using robots and constraints provided by environmental fixtures has diverse industrial applications. In order to establish robust contacts with these fixtures, accurate estimation of the…

In this work, we build on our method for manipulating unknown objects via contact configuration regulation: the estimation and control of the location, geometry, and mode of all contacts between the robot, object, and environment. We…

This study deals with the balance of humanoid or multi-legged robots in a multi-contact setting where a chosen subset of contacts is undergoing desired sliding-task motions. One method to keep balance is to hold the center-of-mass (CoM)…

The field of collaborative robotics and human-robot interaction often focuses on the prediction of human behaviour, while assuming the information about the robot setup and configuration being known. This is often the case with fixed…

For many robotic manipulation and contact tasks, it is crucial to accurately estimate uncertain object poses, for which certain geometry and sensor information are fused in some optimal fashion. Previous results for this problem primarily…

Object permanence in psychology means knowing that objects still exist even if they are no longer visible. It is a crucial concept for robots to operate autonomously in uncontrolled environments. Existing approaches learn object permanence…