Abstract: In this work, we investigate how a state-of-the-art grasp planner based on deep reinforcement learning performs when applied to a soft–rigid gripper in a decluttering task. The gripper, called Soft ScoopGripper (SSG), is endowed with a rigid scoop-shaped part that facilitates the interaction with the environment and with objects. We hypothesize that the clever … [Read more...] about Leveraging Embodied Mechanical Intelligence for Learning Decluttering Tasks: Gripper Design Boosts Learning
Planning
Enhancing Campus Mobility: Achievements and Challenges of the Snow Lion Autonomous Shuttle
In recent years, the rapid evolution of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has reshaped global transportation systems, leading to an increase in autonomous shuttle applications in people’s daily lives. Leveraging the accomplishments of our earlier endeavor, particularly Hercules (Liu et al., 2021), an autonomous logistics vehicle for transporting goods, we introduce Snow Lion, an … [Read more...] about Enhancing Campus Mobility: Achievements and Challenges of the Snow Lion Autonomous Shuttle
Motion Planning for Humanoid Locomotion: Applications to Homelike Environments
“What can your humanoid robot do?” is probably the most commonly asked question that we, as roboticists, have to answer when interacting with the general public. Often, the question is framed in the familiar household or office setting, with implied expectations of robust locomotion on uneven and cluttered terrain and compliant interaction with people, objects, and the … [Read more...] about Motion Planning for Humanoid Locomotion: Applications to Homelike Environments
The Open Stack of Tasks Library: OpenSoT: A Software Dedicated to Hierarchical Whole-Body Control of Robots Subject to Constraints
The Open Stack of Tasks (OpenSoT) library is a state-of-the-art framework for instantaneous whole-body motion planning and control based on quadratic programming optimization. The library is designed to enable users to easily write and solve a variety of complex instantaneous whole-body control problems with minimal input, facilitating the addition of new tasks, constraints, … [Read more...] about The Open Stack of Tasks Library: OpenSoT: A Software Dedicated to Hierarchical Whole-Body Control of Robots Subject to Constraints
The Cluttered Environment Picking Benchmark (CEPB) for Advanced Warehouse Automation: Evaluating the Perception, Planning, Control, and Grasping of Manipulation Systems
Autonomous and reliable robotic grasping is a desirable functionality in robotic manipulation and is still an open problem. Standardized benchmarks are important tools for evaluating and comparing robotic grasping and manipulation systems among different research groups, and also for sharing with the community the best practices to learn from errors. An ideal benchmarking … [Read more...] about The Cluttered Environment Picking Benchmark (CEPB) for Advanced Warehouse Automation: Evaluating the Perception, Planning, Control, and Grasping of Manipulation Systems
