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Bidirectional object handover between a human and a robot enables an important functionality skill in robotic human-centered manufacturing or services. The problem in achieving this skill lies in the capacity of any solution to deal with…

We propose an unsupervised vision-based system to estimate the joint configurations of the robot arm from a sequence of RGB or RGB-D images without knowing the model a priori, and then adapt it to the task of category-independent…

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…

Autonomous grasping remains challenging as unlike humans, robots do not possess a sophisticated sensing nor delicate interaction capability with the real environment. Among other efforts that tried to close the gap between them,…

Automating garment manipulation is challenging due to extremely high variability in object configurations. To reduce this intrinsic variation, we introduce the task of "canonicalized-alignment" that simplifies downstream applications by…

We introduce a new isometric strain model for the study of the dynamics of cloth garments in a moderate stress environment, such as robotic manipulation in the neighborhood of humans. This model treats textiles as surfaces which are…

Soft growing robots are proposed for use in applications such as complex manipulation tasks or navigation in disaster scenarios. Safe interaction and ease of production promote the usage of this technology, but soft robots can be…

Cloth in the real world is often crumpled, self-occluded, or folded in on itself such that key regions, such as corners, are not directly graspable, making manipulation difficult. We propose a system that leverages visual and tactile…

Humans throw and catch objects all the time. However, such a seemingly common skill introduces a lot of challenges for robots to achieve: The robots need to operate such dynamic actions at high-speed, collaborate precisely, and interact…

Attempts to install a rotating tool at the end of a robot arm poly-articulated date back twenty years, but these robots were not designed for that. Indeed, two essential features are necessary for machining: high rigidity and precision in a…

Multisection continuum arms offer complementary characteristics to those of traditional rigid-bodied robots. Inspired by biological appendages, such as elephant trunks and octopus arms, these robots trade rigidity for compliance, accuracy…

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…

Body posture influences human and robots performance in manipulation tasks, as appropriate poses facilitate motion or force exertion along different axes. In robotics, manipulability ellipsoids arise as a powerful descriptor to analyze,…

Kinesthetic garments provide physical feedback on body posture and motion through tailored distributions of reinforced material. Their ability to selectively stiffen a garment's response to specific motions makes them appealing for…

Reliably planning fingertip grasps for multi-fingered hands lies as a key challenge for many tasks including tool use, insertion, and dexterous in-hand manipulation. This task becomes even more difficult when the robot lacks an accurate…

Humanoid robots hold great promise for operating in human-centric environments, yet achieving robust whole-body coordination across the head, hands, and legs remains a major challenge. We present a system that combines a modular…

We present Asymmetric Dexterity (AsymDex), a novel and simple reinforcement learning (RL) framework that can efficiently learn a large class of bimanual skills in multi-fingered hands without relying on demonstrations. Two crucial insights…

Accurate manipulation of a deformable body such as a piece of fabric is difficult because of its many degrees of freedom and unobservable properties affecting its dynamics. To alleviate these challenges, we propose the application of…

The 'infinite' passive degrees of freedom of soft robotic arms render their control especially challenging. In this paper, we leverage a previously developed model, which drawing equivalence of the soft arm to a series of universal joints,…

In hazardous and remote environments, robotic systems perform critical tasks demanding improved safety and efficiency. Among these, quadruped robots with manipulator arms offer mobility and versatility for complex operations. However,…