29 accepted papers
End-effector trajectory tracking algorithms find joint motions that drive robot manipulators to track reference trajectories. In practical scenarios, anytime algorithms are preferred for their ability to quickly generate initial motions and continuously refine them over time. In this letter, we pres
Many robotic applications, such as sanding, polishing, wiping and sensor scanning, require a manipulator to dexterously cover a surface using its end-effector. In this paper, we provide an efficient and effective coverage path planning approach that leverages a manipulator's redundancy and task tole
We aim to recover the geometry of 3D parametric scenes using very few depth measurements from low-cost, commercially available time-of-flight sensors. These sensors offer very low spatial resolution (i.e., a single pixel), but image a wide field-of-view per pixel and capture detailed time-of-flight…
Many applications require a robot to accurately track reference end-effector trajectories. Certain trajectories may not be tracked as single, continuous paths due to the robot’s kinematic constraints or obstacles elsewhere in the environment. In this situation, it becomes necessary to divide the tra…
Roboticists compare robot motions for tasks such as parameter tuning, troubleshooting, and deciding between possible motions. However, most existing visualization tools are designed for individual motions and lack the features necessary to facilitate robot motion comparison. In this letter, we utili
We present a method for reconstructing 3D shape of arbitrary Lambertian objects based on measurements by miniature energy-efficient low-cost single-photon cameras. These cameras operating as time resolved image sensors illuminate the scene with a very fast pulse of diffuse light and record the shape…
We investigate methods for determining if a planar surface contains geometric deviations (e.g., protrusions, objects, divots, or cliffs) using only an instantaneous measurement from a miniature optical time-of-flight sensor. The key to our method is to utilize the entirety of information encoded in
Shared autonomy methods, where a human operator and a robot arm work together, have enabled robots to complete a range of complex and highly variable tasks. Existing work primarily focuses on one human sharing autonomy with a <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http:/
We explore task tolerances, i.e., allowable position or rotation inaccuracy, as an important resource to facilitate smooth and effective telemanipulation. Task tolerances provide a robot flexibility to generate smooth and feasible motions; however, in teleoperation, this flexibility may make the use…
Generating feasible robot motions in real-time requires achieving multiple tasks (i.e., kinematic requirements) simultaneously. These tasks can have a specific goal, a range of equally valid goals, or a range of acceptable goals with a preference toward a specific goal. To satisfy multiple and poten…
We provide methods which recover planar scene geometry by utilizing the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">transient histograms</i> captured by a class of close-range time-of-flight (ToF) distance sensor. A transient histogram is a one d
Drones can provide a minimally-constrained adapting camera view to support robot telemanipulation. Furthermore, the drone view can be automated to reduce the burden on the operator during teleoperation. However, existing approaches do not focus on two important aspects of using a drone as an automat…
Single-pixel distance sensors are a low-power, low-cost option for distance ranging, and are often attached to robots for collision detection and avoidance. The relative sensor pose, i.e., its position and orientation relative to the robot, must be known to relate its measurements to 3D scene geomet
Recently, there has been a wealth of development in motion planning for robotic manipulation—new motion planners are continuously proposed, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. However, evaluating new planners is challenging and researchers often create their own ad-hoc problems for
Many applications in robotics require computing a robot manipulator's "proximity" to a collision state in a given configuration. This collision proximity is commonly framed as a summation over closest Euclidean distances between many pairs of rigid shapes in a scene. Computing many such pairwise…
Remotely programming robots to execute tasks often relies on registering objects of interest in the robot's environment. Frequently, these tasks involve articulating objects such as opening or closing a valve. However, existing human-in-the-loop methods for registering objects do not consider articu…
In this work, we present a per-instant pose optimization method that can generate configurations that achieve specified pose or motion objectives as best as possible over a sequence of solutions, while also simultaneously avoiding collisions with static or dynamic obstacles in the environment. We ca…
Many tasks, particularly those involving interaction with the environment, are characterized by high variability, making robotic autonomy difficult. One flexible solution is to introduce the input of a human with superior experience and cognitive abilities as part of a shared autonomy policy. Howeve
Corrective Shared Autonomy is a method where human corrections are layered on top of an otherwise autonomous robot behavior. Specifically, a Corrective Shared Autonomy system leverages an external controller to allow corrections across a range of task variables (e.g., spinning speed of a tool, appli
Manipulations of a constrained object often use a non-rigid grasp that allows the object to rotate relative to the end effector. This orientation slip strategy is often present in natural human demonstrations, yet it is generally overlooked in methods to identify constraints from such demonstrations…
In this work, we present a novel sampling-based path planning method, called <i>SPRINT</i>. The method finds solutions for high dimensional path planning problems quickly and robustly. Its efficiency comes from minimizing the number of collision check samples. This reduction in sampling relies on he
In this paper, we present a meta-algorithm intended to accelerate many existing path optimization algorithms. The central idea of our work is to strategically break up a waypoint path into consecutive groupings called "pods," then optimize over various pods concurrently using parallel processing. Ea…
In this paper, we introduce a novel method to support remote telemanipulation tasks in complex environments by providing operators with an enhanced view of the task environment. Our method features a novel viewpoint adjustment algorithm designed to automatically mitigate occlusions caused by workspa…
We present a discrete-optimization technique for finding feasible robot arm trajectories that pass through provided 6-DOF Cartesian-space end-effector paths with high accuracy, a problem called pathwise-inverse kinematics. The output from our method consists of a path function of joint-angles that b…
We present an offline method to generate smooth, feasible motion for robot arms such that end-effector pose goals of a 6-DoF path are matched within acceptable limits specified by the user. Our approach aims to accurately match the position and orientation goals of the given path, and allows deviati…
This paper presents an approach for inferring geometric constraints in human demonstrations. In our method, geometric constraint models are built to create representations of kinematic constraints such as fixed point, axial rotation, prismatic motion, planar motion and others across multiple degrees
This letter introduces a method for recognizing geometric constraints from human demonstrations using both position and force measurements. Our key idea is that position information alone is insufficient to determine that a constraint is active and reaction forces must also be considered to correctl
We present a real-time motion-synthesis method for robot manipulators, called RelaxedIK, that is able to not only accurately match end-effector pose goals as done by traditional IK solvers, but also create smooth, feasible motions that avoid joint-space discontinuities, self-collisions, and kinemati…
In this paper we provide a method for identifying and temporally localizing tactile force actions from measured force signals. Our key idea is to use the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) with the Complex Morlet wavelet to transform force signals into feature vectors amenable to machine learning al…