Robotic manipulation of cloth remains challenging due to the complex dynamics of cloth, lack of a low-dimensional state representation, and self-occlusions. In contrast to previous model-based approaches that learn a pixel-based dynamics model or a compressed latent vector dynamics, we propose to learn a particle-based dynamics model from a partial point cloud observation. To overcome the challenges of partial observability, we infer which visible points are connected on the underlying cloth mesh. We then learn a dynamics model over this visible connectivity graph. Compared to previous learning-based approaches, our model poses strong inductive bias with its particle based representation for learning the underlying cloth physics; it can generalize to cloths with novel shapes; it is invariant to visual features; and the predictions can be more easily visualized. We show that our method greatly outperforms previous state-of-the-art model-based and model-free reinforcement learning methods in simulation. Furthermore, we demonstrate zero-shot sim-to-real transfer where we deploy the model trained in simulation on a Franka arm and show that the model can successfully smooth cloths of different materials, geometries and colors from crumpled configurations.
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FabricFlowNet: Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with a Flow-based Policy
We address the problem of goal-directed cloth manipulation, a chal- lenging task due to the deformability of cloth. Our insight is that optical flow, a technique normally used for motion estimation in video, can also provide an effective representation for corresponding cloth poses across observation and goal images. We introduce FabricFlowNet (FFN), a cloth manipulation policy that leverages flow as both an input and as an action representation to improve performance. FabricFlowNet also elegantly switches between dual-arm and single- arm actions based on the desired goal. We show that FabricFlowNet significantly outperforms state-of-the-art model-free and model-based cloth manipulation policies. We also present real-world experiments on a bimanual system, demonstrating effective sim-to-real transfer. Finally, we show that our method generalizes when trained on a single square cloth to other cloth shapes, such as T-shirts and rectangular cloths. Video and other supplementary materials are available at: https://sites.google.com/view/fabricflownet.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10313064
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Conference on Robot Learning
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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https://aix.eng.usf.edu/research_automated_ethogramming.html -
null (Ed.)We present a framework for deformable object manipulation that interleaves planning and control, enabling complex manipulation tasks without relying on high-fidelity modeling or simulation. The key question we address is when should we use planning and when should we use control to achieve the task? Planners are designed to find paths through complex configuration spaces, but for highly underactuated systems, such as deformable objects, achieving a specific configuration is very difficult even with high-fidelity models. Conversely, controllers can be designed to achieve specific configurations, but they can be trapped in undesirable local minima owing to obstacles. Our approach consists of three components: (1) a global motion planner to generate gross motion of the deformable object; (2) a local controller for refinement of the configuration of the deformable object; and (3) a novel deadlock prediction algorithm to determine when to use planning versus control. By separating planning from control we are able to use different representations of the deformable object, reducing overall complexity and enabling efficient computation of motion. We provide a detailed proof of probabilistic completeness for our planner, which is valid despite the fact that our system is underactuated and we do not have a steering function. We then demonstrate that our framework is able to successfully perform several manipulation tasks with rope and cloth in simulation, which cannot be performed using either our controller or planner alone. These experiments suggest that our planner can generate paths efficiently, taking under a second on average to find a feasible path in three out of four scenarios. We also show that our framework is effective on a 16-degree-of-freedom physical robot, where reachability and dual-arm constraints make the planning more difficult.more » « less
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