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Robotic grasping is a fundamental skill required for object manipulation in robotics. Multi-fingered robotic hands, which mimic the structure of the human hand, can potentially perform complex object manipulation. Nevertheless, current…
Robotic cutting of soft materials is critical for applications such as food processing, household automation, and surgical manipulation. As in other areas of robotics, simulators can facilitate controller verification, policy learning, and…
If the dynamics of an evolutionary differential equation system possess a low-dimensional, attracting, slow manifold, there are many advantages to using this manifold to perform computations for long term dynamics, locating features such as…
We present a novel, fast differentiable simulator for soft-body learning and control applications. Existing differentiable soft-body simulators can be classified into two categories based on their time integration methods: Simulators using…
A significant barrier preventing model-based methods from achieving real-time and versatile dexterous robotic manipulation is the inherent complexity of multi-contact dynamics. Traditionally formulated as complementarity models,…
Safe Corridors (a series of overlapping convex shapes) have been used recently in multiple state-of-the-art motion planning methods. They allow to represent the free space in the environment in an efficient way for collision avoidance. In…
We present a method for differentiable simulation of soft articulated bodies. Our work enables the integration of differentiable physical dynamics into gradient-based pipelines. We develop a top-down matrix assembly algorithm within…
Many algorithms for surface registration risk producing significant errors if surfaces are significantly nonisometric. Manifold learning has been shown to be effective at improving registration quality, using information from an entire…
Recent works have sought to enhance the controllability and precision of text-driven motion generation. Some approaches leverage large language models (LLMs) to produce more detailed texts, while others incorporate global 3D coordinate…
Today there is a high variety of haptic devices capable of providing tactile feedback. Although most of existing designs are aimed at realistic simulation of the surface properties, their capabilities are limited in attempts of displaying…
In this paper, we propose ContactSDF, a method that uses signed distance functions (SDFs) to approximate multi-contact models, including both collision detection and time-stepping routines. ContactSDF first establishes an SDF using the…
Differentiable simulation of soft bodies is a foundation for system identification, trajectory optimization, and Real2Sim transfer. Yet, existing methods such as the differentiable Projective Dynamics (DiffPD) struggle when faced with…
Control techniques like MPC can realize contact-rich manipulation which exploits dynamic information, maintaining friction limits and safety constraints. However, contact geometry and dynamics are required to be known. This information is…
This paper explores an eclectic range of path-planning methodologies engineered for rolling surfaces. Our focus is on the kinematic intricacies of rolling contact systems, which are investigated through a motion planning lens. Beyond…
In this paper, we analyze the effects of contact models on contact-implicit trajectory optimization for manipulation. We consider three different approaches: (1) a contact model that is based on complementarity constraints, (2) a smooth…
Simulating soft robots in cluttered environments remains an open problem due to the challenge of capturing complex dynamics and interactions with the environment. Furthermore, fast simulation is desired for quickly exploring robot behaviors…
Collision detection plays a key role in the simulation of interacting rigid bodies. However, owing to its computational complexity current methods typically prioritize either maximizing processing speed or fidelity to real-world behaviors.…
Generalizing tool manipulation requires both semantic planning and precise physical control. Modern generalist robot policies, such as Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, often lack the physical grounding required for contact-rich tool…
Rigid bodies, plastic impact, persistent contact, Coulomb friction, and massless limbs are ubiquitous simplifications introduced to reduce the complexity of mechanics models despite the obvious physical inaccuracies that each incurs…
This paper presents a novel simulation platform, ZeMa, designed for robotic manipulation tasks concerning soft objects. Such simulation ideally requires three properties: two-way soft-rigid coupling, intersection-free guarantees, and…