Related papers: Contact Optimization with Learning from Demonstrat…
Robot control through contact is challenging as it requires reasoning over long horizons and discontinuous system dynamics. Highly dynamic tasks such as Air Hockey additionally require agile behavior, making the corresponding optimal…
We model Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) scenarios as linear dynamical systems and use Model Predictive Control (MPC) with mixed integer constraints to generate human-aware control policies. We motivate the approach by presenting two…
While motion planning of locomotion for legged robots has shown great success, motion planning for legged robots with dexterous multi-finger grasping is not mature yet. We present an efficient motion planning framework for simultaneously…
Non-prehensile object transportation offers a way to enhance robotic performance in object manipulation tasks, especially with unstable objects. Effective trajectory planning requires simultaneous consideration of robot motion constraints…
This thesis deals with shape optimization for contact mechanics. More specifically, the linear elasticity model is considered under the small deformations hypothesis, and the elastic body is assumed to be in contact (sliding or with Tresca…
In this paper, we devise methods for the multi- objective control of humanoid robots, a.k.a. prioritized whole- body controllers, that achieve efficiency and robustness in the algorithmic computations. We use a form of whole-body…
High-fidelity physics simulation is essential for scalable robotic learning, but the sim-to-real gap persists, especially for tasks involving complex, dynamic, and discontinuous interactions like physical contacts. Explicit system…
We investigate optimal reachability and grasping problems for a planar soft manipulator, from both a theoretical and numerical point of view. The underlying control model describes the evolution of the symmetry axis of the device, which is…
The strength of the human hand lies in its ability to manipulate small objects precisely and robustly. In contrast, simple robotic grippers have low dexterity and fail to handle small objects effectively. This is why many automation tasks…
Humans' ability to smoothly switch between locomotion and manipulation is a remarkable feature of sensorimotor coordination. Leaning and replication of such human-like strategies can lead to the development of more sophisticated robots…
We present a reformulation of a contact-implicit optimization (CIO) approach that computes optimal trajectories for rigid-body systems in contact-rich settings. A hard-contact model is assumed, and the unilateral constraints are imposed in…
Human-robot collaboration (HRC) requires robots to adapt their motions to human intent to ensure safe and efficient cooperation in shared spaces. Although large language models (LLMs) provide high-level reasoning for inferring human intent,…
This paper proposes a method to learn from human demonstration compliant contact motions, which take advantage of interaction forces between workpieces to align them, even when contact force may occur from different directions on different…
We present an optimization-based method to plan the motion of an autonomous robot under the uncertainties associated with dynamic obstacles, such as humans. Our method bounds the marginal risk of collisions at each point in time by…
Most existing methods for motion planning of mobile robots involve generating collision-free trajectories. However, these methods focusing solely on contact avoidance may limit the robots' locomotion and can not be applied to tasks where…
We propose a control framework which can utilize tactile information by exploiting the complementarity structure of contact dynamics. Since many robotic tasks, like manipulation and locomotion, are fundamentally based in making and breaking…
Daily manipulation tasks are characterized by geometric primitives related to actions and object shapes. Such geometric descriptors are poorly represented by only using Cartesian coordinate systems. In this paper, we propose a learning…
We study global optimization of non-convex functions through optimal control theory. Our main result establishes that (quasi-)optimal trajectories of a discounted control problem converge globally and practically asymptotically to the set…
Dynamic movement primitives (DMPs) allow complex position trajectories to be efficiently demonstrated to a robot. In contact-rich tasks, where position trajectories alone may not be safe or robust over variation in contact geometry, DMPs…
We present a novel approach for long-term human trajectory prediction in indoor human-centric environments, which is essential for long-horizon robot planning in these environments. State-of-the-art human trajectory prediction methods are…