Related papers: Planning for quasi-static manipulation tasks via a…
In this work, we explore how conventional motion planning algorithms can be reapplied to contact-rich manipulation tasks. Rather than focusing solely on efficiency, we investigate how manipulation aspects can be recast in terms of…
The empirical success of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in the setting of contact-rich manipulation leaves much to be understood from a model-based perspective, where the key difficulties are often attributed to (i) the explosion of contact…
Robot manipulation in cluttered environments often requires complex and sequential rearrangement of multiple objects in order to achieve the desired reconfiguration of the target objects. Due to the sophisticated physical interactions…
We present a novel method for global motion planning of robotic systems that interact with the environment through contacts. Our method directly handles the hybrid nature of such tasks using tools from convex optimization. We formulate the…
Robotic manipulation research has investigated contact-rich problems and strategies that require robots to intentionally collide with their environment, to accomplish tasks that cannot be handled by traditional collision-free solutions. By…
Humans naturally exploit haptic feedback during contact-rich tasks like loading a dishwasher or stocking a bookshelf. Current robotic systems focus on avoiding unexpected contact, often relying on strategically placed environment sensors.…
Non-prehensile manipulation such as pushing is typically subject to uncertain, non-smooth dynamics. However, modeling the uncertainty of the dynamics typically results in intractable belief dynamics, making data-efficient planning under…
Manipulation planning and control are relevant building blocks of a robotic system and their tight integration is a key factor to improve robot autonomy and allows robots to perform manipulation tasks of increasing complexity, such as those…
In this paper, we discuss a framework for teaching bimanual manipulation tasks by imitation. To this end, we present a system and algorithms for learning compliant and contact-rich robot behavior from human demonstrations. The presented…
Robotic dexterous in-hand manipulation, where multiple fingers dynamically make and break contact, represents a step toward human-like dexterity in real-world robotic applications. Unlike learning-based approaches that rely on large-scale…
Recent progress in robotic manipulation has dealt with the case of previously unknown objects in the context of relatively simple tasks, such as bin-picking. Existing methods for more constrained problems, however, such as deliberate…
Robot manipulation in cluttered scenes often requires contact-rich interactions with objects. It can be more economical to interact via non-prehensile actions, for example, push through other objects to get to the desired grasp pose,…
Contact-rich manipulation tasks in unstructured environments often require both haptic and visual feedback. It is non-trivial to manually design a robot controller that combines these modalities which have very different characteristics.…
Pushing is a simple yet effective skill for robots to interact with and further change the environment. Related work has been mostly focused on utilizing it as a non-prehensile manipulation primitive for a robotic manipulator. However, it…
In this work, we propose a geometric framework for analyzing mechanical manipulation, for instance, by a robotic agent. Under the assumption of conservative forces and quasi-static manipulation, we use energy methods to derive a metric. In…
Highly constrained manipulation tasks continue to be challenging for autonomous robots as they require high levels of precision, typically less than 1mm, which is often incompatible with what can be achieved by traditional perception…
This paper uses a mobile manipulator with a collaborative robotic arm to manipulate objects beyond the robot's maximum payload. It proposes a single-shot probabilistic roadmap-based method to plan and optimize manipulation motion with…
We present a contact-implicit planning approach that can generate contact-interaction trajectories for non-prehensile manipulation problems without tuning or a tailored initial guess and with high success rates. This is achieved by…
Efficient tabletop rearrangement remains challenging due to collisions and the need for temporary buffering when target poses are obstructed. Prehensile pick-and-place provides precise control but often requires extra moves, whereas…
Robots need to manipulate objects in constrained environments like shelves and cabinets when assisting humans in everyday settings like homes and offices. These constraints make manipulation difficult by reducing grasp accessibility, so…