Related papers: Predictive Visuo-Tactile Interactive Perception Fr…
Designing robotic tasks for co-manipulation necessitates to exploit not only proprioceptive but also exteroceptive information for improved safety and autonomy. Following such instinct, this research proposes to formulate intuitive robotic…
This paper presents a shape-theoretic framework for dynamical analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems which appear frequently in several video-based inference tasks. Traditional approaches to dynamical modeling have included linear and…
In this paper, we present a method to manipulate unknown objects in-hand using tactile sensing without relying on a known object model. In many cases, vision-only approaches may not be feasible; for example, due to occlusion in cluttered…
Many functional elements of human homes and workplaces consist of rigid components which are connected through one or more sliding or rotating linkages. Examples include doors and drawers of cabinets and appliances; laptops; and swivel…
Perceiving and manipulating 3D articulated objects (e.g., cabinets, doors) in human environments is an important yet challenging task for future home-assistant robots. The space of 3D articulated objects is exceptionally rich in their…
Perceiving the shape and material of an object from a single image is inherently ambiguous, especially when lighting is unknown and unconstrained. Despite this, humans can often disentangle shape and material, and when they are uncertain,…
Many surface cues support three-dimensional shape perception, but people can sometimes still see shape when these features are missing -- in extreme cases, even when an object is completely occluded, as when covered with a draped cloth. We…
In this paper, we consider the problem of understanding the physical properties of unseen objects through interactions between the objects and a robot. Handling unseen objects with special properties such as deformability is challenging for…
For certain manipulation tasks, object pose estimation from head-mounted cameras may not be sufficiently accurate. This is at least in part due to our inability to perfectly calibrate the coordinate frames of today's high degree of freedom…
Deformable objects often appear in unstructured configurations. Tracing deformable objects helps bringing them into extended states and facilitating the downstream manipulation tasks. Due to the requirements for object-specific modeling or…
We describe a framework for changing-contact robot manipulation tasks that require the robot to make and break contacts with objects and surfaces. The discontinuous interaction dynamics of such tasks make it difficult to construct and use a…
Estimation of tactile properties from vision, such as slipperiness or roughness, is important to effectively interact with the environment. These tactile properties help us decide which actions we should choose and how to perform them.…
Predicting other people's action is key to successful social interactions, enabling us to adjust our own behavior to the consequence of the others' future actions. Studies on action recognition have focused on the importance of individual…
Adept manipulation of articulated objects is essential for robots to operate successfully in human environments. Such manipulation requires both effectiveness--reliable operation despite uncertain object structures--and efficiency--swift…
Many modern robotics applications require robots to function autonomously in dynamic environments including other decision making agents, such as people or other robots. This calls for fast and scalable interactive motion planning. This…
Robots operating in domestic environments generally need to interact with articulated objects, such as doors, cabinets, dishwashers or fridges. In this work, we present a novel, probabilistic framework for modeling articulated objects as…
Non-prehensile manipulation, such as pushing objects to a desired target position, is an important skill for robots to assist humans in everyday situations. However, the task is challenging due to the large variety of objects with different…
A self-driving vehicle (SDV) must be able to perceive its surroundings and predict the future behavior of other traffic participants. Existing works either perform object detection followed by trajectory forecasting of the detected objects,…
An important and emerging component of planetary exploration is sample retrieval and return to Earth. Obtaining and analyzing rock samples can provide unprecedented insight into the geology, geo-history and prospects for finding past life…
Can a robot grasp an unknown object without seeing it? In this paper, we present a tactile-sensing based approach to this challenging problem of grasping novel objects without prior knowledge of their location or physical properties. Our…