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DeepWarp is an efficient and highly re-usable deep neural network (DNN) based nonlinear deformable simulation framework. Unlike other deep learning applications such as image recognition, where different inputs have a uniform and consistent…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods have been proven successful in solving manipulation tasks autonomously. However, RL is still not widely adopted on real robotic systems because working with real hardware entails additional challenges,…
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has seen several successful applications to process control. Common methods rely on a deep neural network structure to model the controller or process. With increasingly complicated control structures, the…
Shape-morphing soft materials can enable diverse target morphologies through voxel-level material distribution design, offering significant potential for various applications. Despite progress in basic shape-morphing design with simple…
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…
Robotic manipulation of deformable materials is a challenging task that often requires realtime visual feedback. This is especially true for deformable linear objects (DLOs) or "rods", whose slender and flexible structures make proper…
The accuracy and fidelity of deformation simulations are highly dependent upon the underlying constitutive material model. Commonly used linear or nonlinear constitutive material models only cover a tiny part of possible material behavior.…
Sorting cells based on their mechanical properties is essential for applications in disease diagnostics, cell therapy, and biomedical research. Deterministic Lateral Displacement (DLD) devices provide a label-free method for achieving such…
Controlling the deformation of flexible objects is challenging due to their non-linear dynamics and high-dimensional configuration space. This work presents a differentiable Material Point Method (MPM) simulator targeted at control…
Rearranging and manipulating deformable objects such as cables, fabrics, and bags is a long-standing challenge in robotic manipulation. The complex dynamics and high-dimensional configuration spaces of deformables, compared to rigid…
We propose a framework for deformable linear object prediction. Prediction of deformable objects (e.g., rope) is challenging due to their non-linear dynamics and infinite-dimensional configuration spaces. By mapping the dynamics from a…
Robot manipulation for untangling 1D deformable structures such as ropes, cables, and wires is challenging due to their infinite dimensional configuration space, complex dynamics, and tendency to self-occlude. Analytical controllers often…
This paper introduces an efficient procedure to localize user-defined points on the surface of deformable objects and track their positions in 3D space over time. To cope with a deformable object's infinite number of DOF, we propose a…
Sim-to-real transfer remains a fundamental challenge in robot manipulation due to the entanglement of perception and control in end-to-end learning. We present a decoupled framework that learns each component where it is most reliable:…
The robotic manipulation of deformable linear objects has shown great potential in a wide range of real-world applications. However, it presents many challenges due to the objects' complex nonlinearity and high-dimensional configuration. In…
Recent advances in GPU-based parallel simulation have enabled practitioners to collect large amounts of data and train complex control policies using deep reinforcement learning (RL), on commodity GPUs. However, such successes for RL in…
Designing physical artifacts that serve a purpose - such as tools and other functional structures - is central to engineering as well as everyday human behavior. Though automating design has tremendous promise, general-purpose methods do…
The focus of this work is to enumerate the various approaches and algorithms that center around application of reinforcement learning in robotic ma- ]]nipulation tasks. Earlier methods utilized specialized policy representations and human…
Simulating deformable objects under rich interactions remains a fundamental challenge for real-to-sim robot manipulation, with dynamics jointly driven by environmental effects and robot actions. Existing simulators rely on predefined…
This paper presents a new method for modelling the dynamic behaviour of developable ribbons, two dimensional strips with much smaller width than length. Instead of approximating such surface with a general triangle mesh, we characterize it…