Related papers: Canonical mapping as a general-purpose object desc…
Manipulating objects without grasping them is an essential component of human dexterity, referred to as non-prehensile manipulation. Non-prehensile manipulation may enable more complex interactions with the objects, but also presents…
Most existing motion planning algorithms assume that a map (of some quality) is fully determined prior to generating a motion plan. In many emerging applications of robotics, e.g., fast-moving agile aerial robots with constrained embedded…
In robotic, task goals can be conveyed through various modalities, such as language, goal images, and goal videos. However, natural language can be ambiguous, while images or videos may offer overly detailed specifications. To tackle these…
Palpation, the use of touch in medical examination, is almost exclusively performed by humans. We investigate a proof of concept for an artificial palpation method based on self-supervised learning. Our key idea is that an encoder-decoder…
In the field of robotic manipulation, the proficiency of deformable object manipulation lags behind human capabilities due to the inherent characteristics of deformable objects. These objects have infinite degrees of freedom, resulting in…
Autonomous manipulation of articulated objects remains a fundamental challenge for robots in human environments. Vision-based methods can infer hidden kinematics but can yield imprecise estimates on unfamiliar objects. Tactile approaches…
To solve its task, a robot needs to have the ability to interpret its perceptions. In vision, this interpretation is particularly difficult and relies on the understanding of the structure of the scene, at least to the extent of its task…
Tendon-based underactuated hands are intended to be simple, compliant and affordable. Often, they are 3D printed and do not include tactile sensors. Hence, performing in-hand object recognition with direct touch sensing is not feasible.…
Successful human-robot cooperation hinges on each agent's ability to process and exchange information about the shared environment and the task at hand. Human communication is primarily based on symbolic abstractions of object properties,…
We consider object detection using a generic model for natural shapes. A common approach for object recognition involves matching object models directly to images. Another approach involves building intermediate representations via a…
In industrial environments, predicting human actions is essential for ensuring safe and effective collaboration between humans and robots. This paper introduces a perception framework that enables mobile robots to understand and share…
Large offline learning-based models have enabled robots to successfully interact with objects for a wide variety of tasks. However, these models rely on fairly consistent structured environments. For more unstructured environments, an…
To better optimise the global food supply chain, robotic solutions are needed to automate tasks currently completed by humans. Namely, phenotyping, quality analysis and harvesting are all open problems in the field of agricultural robotics.…
This paper proposes a unified vision-based manipulation framework using image contours of deformable/rigid objects. Instead of using human-defined cues, the robot automatically learns the features from processed vision data. Our method…
In this work, we focus on a novel task of category-level functional hand-object manipulation synthesis covering both rigid and articulated object categories. Given an object geometry, an initial human hand pose as well as a sparse control…
The progressive prevalence of robots in human-suited environments has given rise to a myriad of object manipulation techniques, in which dexterity plays a paramount role. It is well-established that humans exhibit extraordinary dexterity…
In the overview, a generic mathematical object (mapping) is introduced, and its relation to model physics parameterization is explained. Machine learning (ML) tools that can be used to emulate and/or approximate mappings are introduced.…
Humans commonly work with multiple objects in daily life and can intuitively transfer manipulation skills to novel objects by understanding object functional regularities. However, existing technical approaches for analyzing and…
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…
Sequential manipulation tasks require a robot to perceive the state of an environment and plan a sequence of actions leading to a desired goal state. In such tasks, the ability to reason about spatial relations among object entities from…