PolyFit: A Peg-in-hole Assembly Framework for Unseen Polygon Shapes via Sim-to-real Adaptation

The study addresses the foundational and challenging task of peg-in-hole assembly in robotics, where misalignments caused by sensor inaccuracies and mechanical errors often result in insertion failures or jamming. This research introduces PolyFit, representing a paradigm shift by transitioning from a reinforcement learning approach to a supervised learning methodology. PolyFit is a Force/Torque (F/T)-based supervised learning framework designed for 5-DoF peg-in-hole assembly. It utilizes F/T data for accurate extrinsic pose estimation and adjusts the peg pose to rectify misalignments. Extensive training in a simulated environment involves a dataset encompassing a diverse range of peg-hole shapes, extrinsic poses, and their corresponding contact F/T readings. To enhance extrinsic pose estimation, a multi-point contact strategy is integrated into the model input, recognizing that identical F/T readings can indicate different poses. The study proposes a sim-to-real adaptation method for real-world application, using a sim-real paired dataset to enable effective generalization to complex and unseen polygon shapes. PolyFit achieves impressive peg-in-hole success rates of 97.3% and 96.3% for seen and unseen shapes in simulations, respectively. Real-world evaluations further demonstrate substantial success rates of 86.7% and 85.0%, highlighting the robustness and adaptability of the proposed method.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

INSTA-BEEER: Explicit Error Estimation and Refinement for Fast and Accurate Unseen Object Instance Segmentation

Efficient and accurate segmentation of unseen objects is crucial for robotic manipulation. However, it remains challenging due to over- or under-segmentation. Although existing refinement methods can enhance the segmentation quality, they fix only minor boundary errors or are not sufficiently fast. In this work, we propose INSTAnce Boundary Explicit Error Estimation and Refinement (INSTA-BEEER), a novel refinement model that allows for adding and deleting instances and sharpening boundaries. Leveraging an error-estimation-then-refinement scheme, the model first estimates the pixel-wise boundary explicit errors: true positive, true negative, false positive, and false negative pixels of the instance boundary in the initial segmentation. It then refines the initial segmentation using these error estimates as guidance. Experiments show that the proposed model significantly enhances segmentation, achieving state-of-the-art performance. Furthermore, with a fast runtime (less than 0.1 s), the model consistently improves performance across various initial segmentation methods, making it highly suitable for practical robotic applications.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure