26,375 research outputs found
More than a Million Ways to Be Pushed: A High-Fidelity Experimental Dataset of Planar Pushing
Pushing is a motion primitive useful to handle objects that are too large,
too heavy, or too cluttered to be grasped. It is at the core of much of robotic
manipulation, in particular when physical interaction is involved. It seems
reasonable then to wish for robots to understand how pushed objects move.
In reality, however, robots often rely on approximations which yield models
that are computable, but also restricted and inaccurate. Just how close are
those models? How reasonable are the assumptions they are based on? To help
answer these questions, and to get a better experimental understanding of
pushing, we present a comprehensive and high-fidelity dataset of planar pushing
experiments. The dataset contains timestamped poses of a circular pusher and a
pushed object, as well as forces at the interaction.We vary the push
interaction in 6 dimensions: surface material, shape of the pushed object,
contact position, pushing direction, pushing speed, and pushing acceleration.
An industrial robot automates the data capturing along precisely controlled
position-velocity-acceleration trajectories of the pusher, which give dense
samples of positions and forces of uniform quality.
We finish the paper by characterizing the variability of friction, and
evaluating the most common assumptions and simplifications made by models of
frictional pushing in robotics.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
Reactive Planar Manipulation with Convex Hybrid MPC
This paper presents a reactive controller for planar manipulation tasks that
leverages machine learning to achieve real-time performance. The approach is
based on a Model Predictive Control (MPC) formulation, where the goal is to
find an optimal sequence of robot motions to achieve a desired object motion.
Due to the multiple contact modes associated with frictional interactions, the
resulting optimization program suffers from combinatorial complexity when
tasked with determining the optimal sequence of modes.
To overcome this difficulty, we formulate the search for the optimal mode
sequences offline, separately from the search for optimal control inputs
online. Using tools from machine learning, this leads to a convex hybrid MPC
program that can be solved in real-time. We validate our algorithm on a planar
manipulation experimental setup where results show that the convex hybrid MPC
formulation with learned modes achieves good closed-loop performance on a
trajectory tracking problem
A Convex Polynomial Force-Motion Model for Planar Sliding: Identification and Application
We propose a polynomial force-motion model for planar sliding. The set of
generalized friction loads is the 1-sublevel set of a polynomial whose gradient
directions correspond to generalized velocities. Additionally, the polynomial
is confined to be convex even-degree homogeneous in order to obey the maximum
work inequality, symmetry, shape invariance in scale, and fast invertibility.
We present a simple and statistically-efficient model identification procedure
using a sum-of-squares convex relaxation. Simulation and robotic experiments
validate the accuracy and efficiency of our approach. We also show practical
applications of our model including stable pushing of objects and free sliding
dynamic simulations.Comment: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA
Friction Variability in Planar Pushing Data: Anisotropic Friction and Data-collection Bias
Friction plays a key role in manipulating objects. Most of what we do with
our hands, and most of what robots do with their grippers, is based on the
ability to control frictional forces. This paper aims to better understand the
variability and predictability of planar friction. In particular, we focus on
the analysis of a recent dataset on planar pushing by Yu et al. [1] devised to
create a data-driven footprint of planar friction.
We show in this paper how we can explain a significant fraction of the
observed unconventional phenomena, e.g., stochasticity and multi-modality, by
combining the effects of material non-homogeneity, anisotropy of friction and
biases due to data collection dynamics, hinting that the variability is
explainable but inevitable in practice.
We introduce an anisotropic friction model and conduct simulation experiments
comparing with more standard isotropic friction models. The anisotropic
friction between object and supporting surface results in convergence of
initial condition during the automated data collection. Numerical results
confirm that the anisotropic friction model explains the bias in the dataset
and the apparent stochasticity in the outcome of a push. The fact that the data
collection process itself can originate biases in the collected datasets,
resulting in deterioration of trained models, calls attention to the data
collection dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 13 figure
Multi-Sided Boundary Labeling
In the Boundary Labeling problem, we are given a set of points, referred
to as sites, inside an axis-parallel rectangle , and a set of pairwise
disjoint rectangular labels that are attached to from the outside. The task
is to connect the sites to the labels by non-intersecting rectilinear paths,
so-called leaders, with at most one bend.
In this paper, we study the Multi-Sided Boundary Labeling problem, with
labels lying on at least two sides of the enclosing rectangle. We present a
polynomial-time algorithm that computes a crossing-free leader layout if one
exists. So far, such an algorithm has only been known for the cases in which
labels lie on one side or on two opposite sides of (here a crossing-free
solution always exists). The case where labels may lie on adjacent sides is
more difficult. We present efficient algorithms for testing the existence of a
crossing-free leader layout that labels all sites and also for maximizing the
number of labeled sites in a crossing-free leader layout. For two-sided
boundary labeling with adjacent sides, we further show how to minimize the
total leader length in a crossing-free layout
A probabilistic data-driven model for planar pushing
This paper presents a data-driven approach to model planar pushing
interaction to predict both the most likely outcome of a push and its expected
variability. The learned models rely on a variation of Gaussian processes with
input-dependent noise called Variational Heteroscedastic Gaussian processes
(VHGP) that capture the mean and variance of a stochastic function. We show
that we can learn accurate models that outperform analytical models after less
than 100 samples and saturate in performance with less than 1000 samples. We
validate the results against a collected dataset of repeated trajectories, and
use the learned models to study questions such as the nature of the variability
in pushing, and the validity of the quasi-static assumption.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, ICRA 201
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