We present and evaluate an approach for human-in-the-loop specification of shape reconstruction with annotations for basic robot-object interactions. Our method is based on the idea of model annotation: the addition of simple cues to an underlying object model to specify shape and delineate a simple task. The goal is to explore reducing the complexity of CAD-like interfaces so that novice users can quickly recover an object's shape and describe a manipulation task that is then carried out by a robot. The object modeling and interaction annotation capabilities are tested with a user study and compared against results obtained using existing approaches. The approach has been analyzed using a variety of shape comparison, grasping, and manipulation metrics, and tested with the PR2 robot platform, where it was shown to be successful.
Some studies avoid using object models and use the perceptual input directly to extract grasp affordances @cite_119 . In @cite_65 , local surface features are used to propose grasps. Some techniques use a multitude of heuristics to generate grasp hypotheses from the sensed point clouds of the scene @cite_96 . These approaches are, in a way, model-less and allow the grasping of objects by their current appearance. An alternative approach uses object models to store and seed the inference of grasps. In the work of @cite_55 @cite_60 , , develop a technique called where low-dimensional grasp subspaces are computed that match the object shape. These in turn may be used for seeding interactive grasping approaches. Some approaches are denominated hybrid, since they use appearance features or 3D-model detection depending on the situation @cite_4 . While automatic grasping is a promising field, context and functional requirements might place additional conditions on the choosing fo a specific grasp.
@cite_4 @cite_60 @cite_119 @cite_55 @cite_96 @cite_65
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Humanoid robots must be capable of interacting with the world using their hands. A variety of humanlike robot hands have been constructed, but it remains difficult to control these hands in a dexterous way. One challenge is grasp synthesis, where we wish to place the hand and control its shape to successfully grasp a given object. In this paper, we present a datadriven approach to grasp synthesis that treats grasping as a shape matching problem. We begin with a database of grasp examples. Given a model of a new object to be grasped (the query), shape features of the object are compared to shape features of hand poses in these examples in order to identify candidate grasps. For effective retrieval, we develop a novel shape matching algorithm that can accommodate the sparse shape information associated with hand pose and that considers relative placements of contact points and normals, which are important for grasp function. We illustrate our approach with examples using a model of the human hand We address the problem of grasping everyday objects that are small relative to an anthropomorphic hand, such as pens, screwdrivers, cellphones, and hammers from their natural poses on a support surface, e.g., a table top. In such conditions, state of the art grasp generation techniques fail to provide robust, achievable solutions due to either ignoring or trying to avoid contact with the support surface. In contrast, we show that contact with support surfaces is critical for grasping small objects. This also conforms with our anecdotal observations of human grasping behaviors. We develop a simple closed-loop hybrid controller that mimics this interactive, contact-rich strategy by a position-force, pre-grasp and landing strategy for finger placement. The approach uses a compliant control of the hand during the grasp and release of objects in order to preserve safety. We conducted extensive grasping experiments on a variety of small objects with similar shape and size. The results demonstrate that our approach is robust to localization uncertainties and applies to many everyday objects. We present a system for grasping unknown objects, even from piles or cluttered scenes, given a point cloud. Our method is based on the topography of a given scene and abstracts grasp-relevant structures to enable machine learning techniques for grasping tasks. We describe how Height Accumulated Features HAF and their extension, Symmetry Height Accumulated Features, extract grasp relevant local shapes. We investigate grasp quality using an F-score metric. We demonstrate the gain and the expressive power of HAF by comparing its trained classifier with one that resulted from training on simple height grids. An efficient way to calculate HAF is presented. We describe how the trained grasp classifier is used to explore the whole grasp space and introduce a heuristic to find the most robust grasp. We show how to use our approach to adapt the gripper opening width before grasping. In robotic experiments we demonstrate different aspects of our system on three robot platforms: a Schunk seven-degree-of-freedom arm, a PR2 and a Kuka LWR arm. We perform tasks to grasp single objects, autonomously unload a box and clear the table. Thereby we show that our approach is easily adaptable and robust with respect to different manipulators. As part of the experiments we compare our algorithm with a state-of-the-art method and show significant improvements. Concrete examples are used to illustrate the benefit of our approach compared with established grasp approaches. Finally, we show advantages of the symbiosis between our approach and object recognition. One of the basic skills for a robot autonomous grasping is to select the appropriate grasping point for an object. Several recent works have shown that it is possible to learn grasping points from different types of features extracted from a single image or from more complex 3D reconstructions. In the context of learning through experience, this is very convenient, since it does not require a full reconstruction of the object and implicitly incorporates kinematic constraints as the hand morphology. These learning strategies usually require a large set of labeled examples which can be expensive to obtain. In this paper, we address the problem of actively learning good grasping points to reduce the number of examples needed by the robot. The proposed algorithm computes the probability of successfully grasping an object at a given location represented by a feature vector. By autonomously exploring different feature values on different objects, the systems learn where to grasp each of the objects. The algorithm combines beta-binomial distributions and a non-parametric kernel approach to provide the full distribution for the probability of grasping. This information allows to perform an active exploration that efficiently learns good grasping points even among different objects. We tested our algorithm using a real humanoid robot that acquired the examples by experimenting directly on the objects and, therefore, it deals better with complex (anthropomorphic) hand-object interactions whose results are difficult to model, or predict. The results show a smooth generalization even in the presence of very few data as is often the case in learning through experience. This paper presents a hierarchical, statistical topic model for representing the grasp preshapes of a set of objects. Observations provided by teleoperation are clustered into latent affordances shared among all objects. Each affordance defines a joint distribution over position and orientation of the hand relative to the object and conditioned on visual appearance. The parameters of the model are learned using a Gibbs sampling method. After training, the model can be used to compute grasp preshapes for a novel object based on its visual appearance. The model is evaluated experimentally on a set of objects for its ability to generate grasp preshapes that lead to successful grasps, and compared to a baseline approach. In this paper we focus on the concept of low-dimensional posture subspaces for artificial hands. We begin by discussing the applicability of a hand configuration subspace to the problem of automated grasp synthesis; our results show that low-dimensional optimization can be instrumental in deriving effective pre-grasp shapes for a number of complex robotic hands. We then show that the computational advantages of using a reduced dimensionality framework enable it to serve as an interface between the human and automated components of an interactive grasping system. We present an on-line grasp planner that allows a human operator to perform dexterous grasping tasks using an artificial hand. In order to achieve the computational rates required for effective user interaction, grasp planning is performed in a hand posture subspace of highly reduced dimensionality. The system also uses real-time input provided by the operator, further simplifying the search for stable grasps to the point where solutions can be found at interactive rates. We demonstrate our approach on a number of different hand models and target objects, in both real and virtual environments. We review the work on data-driven grasp synthesis and the methodologies for sampling and ranking candidate grasps. We divide the approaches into three groups based on whether they synthesize grasps for known, familiar or unknown objects. This structure allows us to identify common object representations and perceptual processes that facilitate the employed data-driven grasp synthesis technique. In the case of known objects, we concentrate on the approaches that are based on object recognition and pose estimation. In the case of familiar objects, the techniques use some form of a similarity matching to a set of previously encountered objects. Finally for the approaches dealing with unknown objects, the core part is the extraction of specific features that are indicative of good grasps. Our survey provides an overview of the different methodologies and discusses open problems in the area of robot grasping. We also draw a parallel to the classical approaches that rely on analytic formulations. Recently, a number of grasp detection methods have been proposed that can be used to localize robotic grasp configurations directly from sensor data without estimating object pose. The underlying idea is to treat grasp perception analogously to object detection in computer vision. These methods take as input a noisy and partially occluded RGBD image or point cloud and produce as output pose estimates of viable grasps, without assuming a known CAD model of the object. Although these methods generalize grasp knowledge to new objects well, they have not yet been demonstrated to be reliable enough for wide use. Many grasp detection methods achieve grasp success rates (grasp successes as a fraction of the total number of grasp attempts) between 75 and 95 for novel objects presented in isolation or in light clutter. Not only are these success rates too low for practical grasping applications, but the light clutter scenarios that are evaluated often do not reflect the realities of real-world grasping. This pap... Robotic grasping has attracted considerable interest, but it still remains a challenging task. The data-driven approach is a promising solution to the robotic grasping problem; this approach leverages a grasp dataset and generalizes grasps for various objects. However, these methods often depend on the quality of the given datasets, which are not trivial to obtain with sufficient quality. Although reinforcement learning approaches have been recently used to achieve autonomous collection of grasp datasets, the existing algorithms are often limited to specific grasp types. In this paper, we present a framework for hierarchical reinforcement learning of grasping policies. In our framework, the lower-level hierarchy learns multiple grasp types, and the upper-level hierarchy learns a policy to select from the learned grasp types according to a point cloud of a new object. Through experiments, we validate that our approach learns grasping by constructing the grasp dataset autonomously. The experimental results show that our approach learns multiple grasping policies and generalizes the learned grasps by using local point cloud information. Two-finger antipodal point grasping of arbitrarily shaped smooth 2-D and 3-D objects is considered. An object function is introduced that maps a finger contact space to the object surface. Conditions are developed to identify the feasible grasping region, F, in the finger contact space. A "grasping energy function", E, is introduced which is proportional to the distance between two grasping points. The antipodal points correspond to critical points of E in F. Optimization and or continuation techniques are used to find these critical points. In particular, global optimization techniques are applied to find the "maximal" or "minimal" grasp. Further, modeling techniques are introduced for representing 2-D and 3-D objects using B-spline curves and spherical product surfaces. > How should a robot direct active vision so as to ensure reliable grasping? We answer this question for the case of dexterous grasping of unfamiliar objects. By dexterous grasping we simply mean grasping by any hand with more than two fingers, such that the robot has some choice about where to place each finger. Such grasps typically fail in one of two ways, either unmodeled objects in the scene cause collisions or object reconstruction is insufficient to ensure that the grasp points provide a stable force closure. These problems can be solved more easily if active sensing is guided by the anticipated actions. Our approach has three stages. First, we take a single view and generate candidate grasps from the resulting partial object reconstruction. Second, we drive the active vision approach to maximise surface reconstruction quality around the planned contact points. During this phase, the anticipated grasp is continually refined. Third, we direct gaze to improve the safety of the planned reach to grasp trajectory. We show, on a dexterous manipulator with a camera on the wrist, that our approach (80.4 success rate) outperforms a randomised algorithm (64.3 success rate). This paper proposes a new approach to using machine learning to detect grasp poses on novel objects presented in clutter. The input to our algorithm is a point cloud and the geometric parameters of the robot hand. The output is a set of hand poses that are expected to be good grasps. There are two main contributions. First, we identify a set of necessary conditions on the geometry of a grasp that can be used to generate a set of grasp hypotheses. This helps focus grasp detection away from regions where no grasp can exist. Second, we show how geometric grasp conditions can be used to generate labeled datasets for the purpose of training the machine learning algorithm. This enables us to generate large amounts of training data and it grounds our training labels in grasp mechanics. Overall, our method achieves an average grasp success rate of 88 when grasping novels objects presented in isolation and an average success rate of 73 when grasping novel objects presented in dense clutter. This system is available as a ROS package at http: wiki.ros.org agile_grasp. In this paper, we address the problem of automatic grasp generation for robotic hands where experience and shape primitives are used in synergy so to provide a basis not only for grasp generation but also for a grasp evaluation process when the exact pose of the object is not available. One of the main challenges in automatic grasping is the choice of the object approach vector, which is dependent both on the object shape and pose as well as the grasp type. Using the proposed method, the approach vector is chosen not only based on the sensory input but also on experience that some approach vectors will provide useful tactile information that finally results in stable grasps. A methodology for developing and evaluating grasp controllers is presented where the focus lies on obtaining stable grasps under imperfect vision. The method is used in a teleoperation or a programming by demonstration setting where a human demonstrates to a robot how to grasp an object. The system first recognizes the object and grasp type which can then be used by the robot to perform the same action using a mapped version of the human grasping posture. Abstract The problem of finding stable grasps has been widely studied in robotics. However, in many applications the resulting grasps should not only be stable but also applicable for a particular task. Task-specific grasps are closely linked to object categories so that objects in a same category can be often used to perform the same task. This paper presents a probabilistic approach for task-specific stable grasping of objects with shape variations inside the category. An optimal grasp is found as a grasp that is maximally likely to be task compatible and stable taking into account shape uncertainty in a probabilistic context. The method requires only partial models of new objects for grasp generation and only few models and example grasps are used during the training stage. The experiments show that the approach can use multiple models to generalize to new objects in that it outperforms grasping based on the closest model. The method is shown to generate stable grasps for new objects belonging to the same class as well as for similar in shape objects of different categories. Reliable precision grasping for unknown objects is a prerequisite for robots that work in the field of logistics, manufacturing and household tasks. The nature of this task requires a simultaneous solution of a mixture of sub-problems. These include estimating object properties, finding viable grasps and executing grasps without displacement. We propose to explicitly take perceptual uncertainty into account during grasp execution. The underlying object representation is a probabilistic signed distance field, which includes both signed distances to the surface and spatially interpretable variances. Based on this representation, we propose a two-stage grasp generation method, which is specifically designed for generating precision grasps. In order to evaluate the whole approach, we perform extensive real world grasping experiments on a set of hard-to-grasp objects. Our approach achieves 78 success rate and shows robustness to the placement orientation. In this paper, we present a novel framework to drive automatic robotic grasp by matching camera captured RGB-D data with 3D meshes, on which prior knowledge for grasp is pre-defined for each object type. The proposed framework consists of two modules, namely, pre-defining grasping knowledge for each type of object shape on 3D meshes, and automatic robotic grasping by matching RGB-D data with pre-defined 3D meshes. In the first module, we scan 3D meshes for typical object shapes and pre-define grasping regions for each 3D shape surface, which will be considered as the prior knowledge for guiding automatic robotic grasp. In the second module, for each RGB-D image captured by a depth camera, we recognize 2D shape of the object in it by an SVM classifier, and then segment it from background using depth data. Next, we propose a new algorithm to match the segmented RGB-D shape with predefined 3D meshes to guide robotic self-location and grasp by an automatic way. Our experimental results show that the proposed framework is particularly useful to guide camera based robotic grasp. Grasp planning based on perceived sensor data of an object can be performed in different ways, depending on the chosen semantic interpretation of the sensed data. For example, if the object can be recognized and a complete 3D model is available, a different planning tool can be selected compared to the situation in which only the raw sensed data, such as a single point cloud, is available. Instead of choosing between these options, we present a framework that combines them, aiming to find consensus on how the object should be grasped by using the information from each object representation according to their confidence levels. We show that this method is robust to common errors in perception, such as incorrect object recognition, while also taking into account potential grasp execution errors due to imperfect robot calibration. We illustrate this method on the PR2 robot by grasping objects common in human environments. The ability to grasp unknown objects is an important skill for personal robots, which has been addressed by many present and past research projects, but still remains an open problem. A crucial aspect of grasping is choosing an appropriate grasp configuration, i.e. the 6d pose of the hand relative to the object and its finger configuration. Finding feasible grasp configurations for novel objects, however, is challenging because of the huge variety in shape and size of these objects. Moreover, possible configurations also depend on the specific kinematics of the robotic arm and hand in use. In this paper, we introduce a new grasp selection algorithm able to find object grasp poses based on previously demonstrated grasps. Assuming that objects with similar shapes can be grasped in a similar way, we associate to each demonstrated grasp a grasp template. The template is a local shape descriptor for a possible grasp pose and is constructed using 3d information from depth sensors. For each new object to grasp, the algorithm then finds the best grasp candidate in the library of templates. The grasp selection is also able to improve over time using the information of previous grasp attempts to adapt the ranking of the templates. We tested the algorithm on two different platforms, the Willow Garage PR2 and the Barrett WAM arm which have very different hands. Our results show that the algorithm is able to find good grasp configurations for a large set of objects from a relatively small set of demonstrations, and does indeed improve its performance over time. Can a robot grasp an unknown object without seeing it? In this paper, we present a tactile-sensing based approach to this challenging problem of grasping novel objects without prior knowledge of their location or physical properties. Our key idea is to combine touch based object localization with tactile based re-grasping. To train our learning models, we created a large-scale grasping dataset, including more than 30 RGB frames and over 2.8 million tactile samples from 7800 grasp interactions of 52 objects. To learn a representation of tactile signals, we propose an unsupervised auto-encoding scheme, which shows a significant improvement of 4-9 over prior methods on a variety of tactile perception tasks. Our system consists of two steps. First, our touch localization model sequentially 'touch-scans' the workspace and uses a particle filter to aggregate beliefs from multiple hits of the target. It outputs an estimate of the object's location, from which an initial grasp is established. Next, our re-grasping model learns to progressively improve grasps with tactile feedback based on the learned features. This network learns to estimate grasp stability and predict adjustment for the next grasp. Re-grasping thus is performed iteratively until our model identifies a stable grasp. Finally, we demonstrate extensive experimental results on grasping a large set of novel objects using tactile sensing alone. Furthermore, when applied on top of a vision-based policy, our re-grasping model significantly boosts the overall accuracy by 10.6 . We believe this is the first attempt at learning to grasp with only tactile sensing and without any prior object knowledge. This paper presents a method for one-shot learning of dexterous grasps and grasp generation for novel objects. A model of each grasp type is learned from a single kinesthetic demonstration and several types are taught. These models are used to select and generate grasps for unfamiliar objects. Both the learning and generation stages use an incomplete point cloud from a depth camera, so no prior model of an object shape is used. The learned model is a product of experts, in which experts are of two types. The first type is a contact model and is a density over the pose of a single hand link relative to the local object surface. The second type is the hand-configuration model and is a density over the whole-hand configuration. Grasp generation for an unfamiliar object optimizes the product of these two model types, generating thousands of grasp candidates in under 30 seconds. The method is robust to incomplete data at both training and testing stages. When several grasp types are considered the method selects the highest-likelihood grasp across all the types. In an experiment, the training set consisted of five different grasps and the test set of 45 previously unseen objects. The success rate of the first-choice grasp is 84.4 or 77.7 if seven views or a single view of the test object are taken, respectively.