Related papers: Contact Optimization with Learning from Demonstrat…
We present an efficient spacetime optimization method to automatically generate animations for a general volumetric, elastically deformable body. Our approach can model the interactions between the body and the environment and automatically…
Training agents to autonomously learn how to use anthropomorphic robotic hands has the potential to lead to systems capable of performing a multitude of complex manipulation tasks in unstructured and uncertain environments. In this work, we…
Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…
Non-prehensile manipulation enables fast interactions with objects by circumventing the need to grasp and ungrasp as well as handling objects that cannot be grasped through force closure. Current approaches to non-prehensile manipulation…
In this work we present a trajectory Optimization framework for whole-body motion planning through contacts. We demonstrate how the proposed approach can be applied to automatically discover different gaits and dynamic motions on a…
Robots often have to perform manipulation tasks in close proximity to people. As such, it is desirable to use a robot arm that has limited joint torques to not injure the nearby person and interacts with the environment to explore new…
Imitation learning from human-provided demonstrations is a strong approach for learning policies for robot manipulation. While the ideal dataset for imitation learning is homogenous and low-variance -- reflecting a single, optimal method…
Contact-based motion planning for manipulation, object exploration or balancing often requires finding sequences of fixed and sliding contacts and planning the transition from one contact in the environment to another. However, most…
The transition from free motion to contact is a challenging problem in robotics, in part due to its hybrid nature. Additionally, disregarding the effects of impacts at the motion planning level often results in intractable impulsive contact…
Generating intelligent robot behavior in contact-rich settings is a research problem where zeroth-order methods currently prevail. A major contributor to the success of such methods is their robustness in the face of non-smooth and…
This paper presents a reactive controller for planar manipulation tasks that leverages machine learning to achieve real-time performance. The approach is based on a Model Predictive Control (MPC) formulation, where the goal is to find an…
To achieve general-purpose dexterous manipulation, robots must rapidly devise and execute contact-rich behaviors. Existing model-based controllers are incapable of globally optimizing in real-time over the exponential number of possible…
To be feasible for computationally intensive applications such as parametric studies, optimization and control design, large-scale finite element analysis requires model order reduction. This is particularly true in nonlinear settings that…
With the maturation of differentiable physics, its role in various downstream applications: such as model predictive control, robotic design optimization, and neural PDE solvers, has become increasingly important. However, the derivative…
Many robots are not equipped with a manipulator and many objects are not suitable for prehensile manipulation (such as large boxes and cylinders). In these cases, pushing is a simple yet effective non-prehensile skill for robots to interact…
Simplified models are useful to increase the computational efficiency of a motion planning algorithm, but their lack of accuracy have to be managed. We propose two feasibility constraints to be included in a Single Rigid Body Dynamicsbased…
Contact-rich problems, such as snake robot locomotion, offer unexplored yet rich opportunities for optimization-based trajectory and acyclic contact planning. So far, a substantial body of control research has focused on emulating snake…
In this paper, we present a framework that unites obstacle avoidance and deliberate physical interaction for robotic manipulators. As humans and robots begin to coexist in work and household environments, pure collision avoidance is…
A seamless integration of robots into human environments requires robots to learn how to use existing human tools. Current approaches for learning tool manipulation skills mostly rely on expert demonstrations provided in the target robot…
This paper presents a sampling-based planning algorithm for in-hand manipulation of a grasped object using a series of external pushes. A high-level sampling-based planning framework, in tandem with a low-level inverse contact dynamics…