Related papers: RoboHitch: Learning Visual Affordance from Disorde…

Deformable linear objects (DLOs) manipulation presents significant challenges due to DLOs' inherent high-dimensional state space and complex deformation dynamics. The wide-populated obstacles in realistic workspaces further complicate DLO…

Robot co-design, where the morphology of a robot is optimized jointly with a learned policy to solve a specific task, is an emerging area of research. It holds particular promise for soft robots, which are amenable to novel manufacturing…

In robotic surgery, pattern cutting through a deformable material is a challenging research field. The cutting procedure requires a robot to concurrently manipulate a scissor and a gripper to cut through a predefined contour trajectory on…

Robotic grasping is facing a variety of real-world uncertainties caused by non-static object states, unknown object properties, and cluttered object arrangements. The difficulty of grasping increases with the presence of more uncertainties,…

The problem of modeling ropes arises in many applications, including providing haptic feedback to surgeons who are using surgical robots to realign the distal and proximal ends of split bones. Here, we consider a simplified, 2D variant of…

Manipulation of elastoplastic objects like dough often involves topological changes such as splitting and merging. The ability to accurately predict these topological changes that a specific action might incur is critical for planning…

Manipulating deformable linear objects (DLOs) is challenging due to their complex dynamics and the need for safe interaction in contact-rich environments. Most existing models focus on shape prediction alone and fail to account for contact…

In this study, we report the successful execution of in-air knotting of rope using a dual-arm two-finger robot based on deep learning. Owing to its flexibility, the state of the rope was in constant flux during the operation of the robot.…

Manipulating deformable objects, such as ropes and clothing, is a long-standing challenge in robotics, because of their large degrees of freedom, complex non-linear dynamics, and self-occlusion in visual perception. The key difficulty is a…

Autonomous wire harness assembly requires robots to manipulate complex branched cables with high precision and reliability. A key challenge in automating this process is predicting how these flexible and branched structures behave under…

Understanding and manipulating deformable objects (e.g., ropes and fabrics) is an essential yet challenging task with broad applications. Difficulties come from complex states and dynamics, diverse configurations and high-dimensional action…

Manipulating deformable linear objects (DLOs) such as wires and cables is crucial in various applications like electronics assembly and medical surgeries. However, it faces challenges due to DLOs' infinite degrees of freedom, complex…

Supervised machine learning (ML) methods are emerging as valid alternatives to standard mathematical methods for identifying knots in long, collapsed polymers. Here, we introduce a hybrid supervised/unsupervised ML approach for knot…

The tie-knotting task is highly challenging due to the tie's high deformation and long-horizon manipulation actions. This work presents TieBot, a Real-to-Sim-to-Real learning from visual demonstration system for the robots to learn to knot…

Object tracking is an essential problem in computer vision that has been researched for several decades. One of the main challenges in tracking is to adapt to object appearance changes over time and avoiding drifting to background clutter.…

This paper introduces a novel and general method to address the problem of using a general-purpose robot manipulator with a parallel gripper to wrap a deformable linear object (DLO), called a rope, around a rigid object, called a rod,…

Reliable perception of targets is crucial for the stable operation of autonomous robots. A widely preferred method is keypoint identification in an image, as it allows direct mapping from raw images to 2D coordinates, facilitating…

Cable/rope elements are pervasive in deformable-object manipulation, often serving as a deformable force-transmission medium whose routing and contact determine how wrenches are delivered. In cable-towed manipulation, transmission is…

This paper proposes a unified vision-based manipulation framework using image contours of deformable/rigid objects. Instead of using human-defined cues, the robot automatically learns the features from processed vision data. Our method…

This paper proposes a new control framework for manipulating soft objects. A Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) approach is used to make the shape of a deformable object reach a set of desired points by controlling a robotic arm which…