Related papers: Heterogeneous object manipulation on nonlinear sof…
Real-life control tasks involve matters of various substances---rigid or soft bodies, liquid, gas---each with distinct physical behaviors. This poses challenges to traditional rigid-body physics engines. Particle-based simulators have been…
Hybrid rigid-soft robots combine the precision of rigid manipulators with the compliance and adaptability of soft arms, offering a promising approach for versatile grasping in unstructured environments. However, coordinating hybrid robots…
Deformable object manipulation requires computationally efficient representations that are compatible with robotic sensing modalities. In this paper, we present VIRDO:an implicit, multi-modal, and continuous representation for…
Multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) robotic manipulators exhibit strongly nonlinear, high-dimensional, and coupled dynamics, posing significant challenges for controller design. To address these issues, this work proposes a unified hybrid control…
The robotic manipulation of compliant objects is currently one of the most active problems in robotics due to its potential to automate many important applications. Despite the progress achieved by the robotics community in recent years,…
In the field of robotic manipulation, the proficiency of deformable object manipulation lags behind human capabilities due to the inherent characteristics of deformable objects. These objects have infinite degrees of freedom, resulting in…
We consider the problem of grasping deformable objects with soft shells using a robotic gripper. Such objects have a center-of-mass that changes dynamically and are fragile so prone to burst. Thus, it is difficult for robots to generate…
What appears effortless to a human waiter remains a major challenge for robots. Manipulating objects nonprehensilely on a tray is inherently difficult, and the complexity is amplified in dual-arm settings. Such tasks are highly relevant to…
In this paper we document a novel laboratory experimental platform for non-contact planar manipulation (positioning) of millimeter-scale objects using acoustic pressure. The manipulated objects are either floating on a water surface or…
Hand manipulating objects is an important interaction motion in our daily activities. We faithfully reconstruct this motion with a single RGBD camera by a novel deep reinforcement learning method to leverage physics. Firstly, we propose…
Contact-rich manipulation tasks in unstructured environments often require both haptic and visual feedback. However, it is non-trivial to manually design a robot controller that combines modalities with very different characteristics. While…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
While soft robot manipulators offer compelling advantages over rigid counterparts, including inherent compliance, safe human-robot interaction, and the ability to conform to complex geometries, accurate forward modeling from low-dimensional…
Topology optimization is a powerful tool utilized in various fields for structural design. However, its application has primarily been restricted to static or passively moving objects, mainly focusing on hard materials with limited…
Endowing robots with tactile capabilities opens up new possibilities for their interaction with the environment, including the ability to handle fragile and/or soft objects. In this work, we equip the robot gripper with low-cost…
Precise and high-fidelity force control is critical for new generations of robots that interact with humans and unknown environments. Mobile robots, such as wearable devices and legged robots, must also be lightweight to accomplish their…
Robotic in-hand manipulation has been a long-standing challenge due to the complexity of modelling hand and object in contact and of coordinating finger motion for complex manipulation sequences. To address these challenges, the majority of…
This paper presents the technique of flex-and-flip manipulation. It is suitable for grasping thin, flexible linear objects lying on a flat surface. During the manipulation process, the object is first flexed by a robotic gripper whose…
Warehouse robotic systems equipped with vacuum grippers must reliably grasp a diverse range of objects from densely packed shelves. However, these environments present significant challenges, including occlusions, diverse object…
Policy learning in robot-assisted surgery (RAS) lacks data efficient and versatile methods that exhibit the desired motion quality for delicate surgical interventions. To this end, we introduce Movement Primitive Diffusion (MPD), a novel…