Related papers: Robust Rigid Body Assembly via Contact-Implicit Op…
Accurate actuation models are critical for bridging the gap between simulation and real robot behavior, yet obtaining high-fidelity actuator dynamics typically requires dedicated test stands and torque sensing. We present a trajectory-based…
Developing robot controllers in a simulated environment is advantageous but transferring the controllers to the target environment presents challenges, often referred to as the "sim-to-real gap". We present a method for continuous…
Accurate deformable object manipulation (DOM) is essential for achieving autonomy in robotic surgery, where soft tissues are being displaced, stretched, and dissected. Many DOM methods can be powered by simulation, which ensures realistic…
Trajectory planning in dense, interactive traffic scenarios presents significant challenges for autonomous vehicles, primarily due to the uncertainty of human driver behavior and the non-convex nature of collision avoidance constraints.…
This paper presents a novel method for reformulating non-differentiable collision avoidance constraints into smooth nonlinear constraints using strong duality of convex optimization. We focus on a controlled object whose goal is to avoid…
In this paper we present a new approach for dynamic motion planning for legged robots. We formulate a trajectory optimization problem based on a compact form of the robot dynamics. Such a form is obtained by projecting the rigid body…
Direct collocation methods are widely used numerical techniques for solving optimal control problems. The discretization of continuous-time optimal control problems transforms them into large-scale nonlinear programming problems, which…
Direct policy search serves as one of the workhorses in modern reinforcement learning (RL), and its applications in continuous control tasks have recently attracted increasing attention. In this work, we investigate the convergence theory…
This work studies the design of safe control policies for large-scale non-linear systems operating in uncertain environments. In such a case, the robust control framework is a principled approach to safety that aims to maximize the…
Differentiable programming is revolutionizing computational science by enabling automatic differentiation (AD) of numerical simulations. While first-order gradients are well-established, second-order derivatives (Hessians) for implicit…
Insertion operations are a critical element of most robotic assembly operation, and peg-in-hole (PiH) insertion is one of the most widely studied tasks in the industrial and academic manipulation communities. PiH insertion is in fact an…
This paper explores the idea that skillful assembly is best represented as dynamic sequences of Manipulation Primitives, and that such sequences can be automatically discovered by Reinforcement Learning. Manipulation Primitives, such as…
Optimal control problems are formulated and efficient computational procedures are proposed for combined orbital and rotational maneuvers of a rigid body in three dimensions. The rigid body is assumed to act under the influence of forces…
Long-term non-prehensile planar manipulation is a challenging task for planning and control, requiring determination of both continuous and discrete contact configurations, such as contact points and modes. This leads to the non-convexity…
Approximate simulation, an extension of simulation relations from formal methods to continuous systems, is a powerful tool for hierarchical control of complex systems. Finding an approximate simulation relation between the full "concrete"…
Robotic manipulation of deformable objects remains a challenging task. One such task is folding a garment autonomously. Given start and end folding positions, what is an optimal trajectory to move the robotic arm to fold a garment? Certain…
The simulation of multi-body systems with frictional contacts is a fundamental tool for many fields, such as robotics, computer graphics, and mechanics. Hard frictional contacts are particularly troublesome to simulate because they make the…
Controlling the shape of deformable linear objects using robots and constraints provided by environmental fixtures has diverse industrial applications. In order to establish robust contacts with these fixtures, accurate estimation of the…
Multi-material design optimization problems can, after discretization, be solved by the iterative solution of simpler sub-problems which approximate the original problem at an expansion point to first order. In particular, models…
Many real-world control problems involve both discrete decision variables - such as the choice of control modes, gear switching or digital outputs - as well as continuous decision variables - such as velocity setpoints, control gains or…