Related papers: Smoothly Differentiable and Efficiently Vectorizab…
Generating intelligent robot behavior in contact-rich settings is a research problem where zeroth-order methods currently prevail. Developing methods that make use of first/second order information about rigid-body dynamics in the presence…
We present a differentiable formulation of rigid-body contact dynamics for objects and robots represented as compositions of convex primitives. Existing optimization-based approaches simulating contact between convex primitives rely on a…
Contact forces introduce discontinuities into robot dynamics that severely limit the use of simulators for gradient-based optimization. Penalty-based simulators such as MuJoCo, soften contact resolution to enable gradient computation.…
Gradient-based methods can efficiently optimize controllers by leveraging differentiable simulation and physical priors. However, contact-rich manipulation remains challenging because hybrid contact dynamics often produce discontinuous or…
The current dominant paradigm for robotic manipulation involves two separate stages: manipulator design and control. Because the robot's morphology and how it can be controlled are intimately linked, joint optimization of design and control…
Generating intelligent robot behavior in contact-rich settings is a research problem where zeroth-order methods currently prevail. A major contributor to the success of such methods is their robustness in the face of non-smooth and…
Collision detection between objects is critical for simulation, control, and learning for robotic systems. However, existing collision detection routines are inherently non-differentiable, limiting their applications in gradient-based…
Collision detection is a core component of robotics applications such as simulation, control, and planning. Traditional algorithms like GJK+EPA compute witness points (i.e., the closest or deepest-penetration pairs between two objects) but…
Common methods for learning robot dynamics assume motion is continuous, causing unrealistic model predictions for systems undergoing discontinuous impact and stiction behavior. In this work, we resolve this conflict with a smooth, implicit…
Soft growing robots, commonly referred to as vine robots, have demonstrated remarkable ability to interact safely and robustly with unstructured and dynamic environments. It is therefore natural to exploit contact with the environment for…
Differentiable physics simulation provides an avenue to tackle previously intractable challenges through gradient-based optimization, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of solving robotics-related problems. To apply differentiable…
Frictional contact has been extensively studied as the core underlying behavior of legged locomotion and manipulation, and its nearly-discontinuous nature makes planning and control difficult even when an accurate model of the robot is…
Linear models for control and motion generation of humanoid robots have received significant attention in the past years, not only due to their well known theoretical guarantees, but also because of practical computational advantages.…
3D rendering of dynamic face captures is a challenging problem, and it demands improvements on several fronts$\unicode{x2014}$photorealism, efficiency, compatibility, and configurability. We present a novel representation that enables…
Face is one of the most important things for communication with the world around us. It also forms our identity and expressions. Estimating the face structure is a fundamental task in computer vision with applications in different areas…
In recent years, soft robotics simulators have evolved to offer various functionalities, including the simulation of different material types (e.g., elastic, hyper-elastic) and actuation methods (e.g., pneumatic, cable-driven, servomotor).…
In this paper, we develop a principled method to model line and surface contact with point contact (we call this point, equivalent contact point) that is consistent with physics-based models of surface (line) contact. Assuming that the set…
Differentiable simulation establishes the mathematical foundation for solving challenging inverse problems in computer graphics and robotics, such as physical system identification and inverse dynamics control. However, rigor in frictional…
Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…
We present a feasibility-driven teleoperation framework designed to generate humanoid multi-contact maneuvers for use in unstructured environments. Our framework is designed for motions with arbitrary contact modes and postures. The…