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arXiv · 1512.06922

Folding Deformable Objects using Predictive Simulation and Trajectory Optimization

Yinxiao Li·Yonghao Yue·Danfei Xu·Eitan Grinspun·Peter Allen
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Abstract

Robotic manipulation of deformable objects remains a challenging task. One such task is folding a garment autonomously. Given start and end folding positions, what is an optimal trajectory to move the robotic arm to fold a garment? Certain trajectories will cause the garment to move, creating wrinkles, and gaps, other trajectories will fail altogether. We present a novel solution to find an optimal trajectory that avoids such problematic scenarios. The trajectory is optimized by minimizing a quadratic objective function in an off-line simulator, which includes material properties of the garment and frictional force on the table. The function measures the dissimilarity between a user folded shape and the folded garment in simulation, which is then used as an error measurement to create an optimal trajectory. We demonstrate that our two-arm robot can follow the optimized trajectories, achieving accurate and efficient manipulations of deformable objects.

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Yinxiao Li, Yonghao Yue, Danfei Xu, Eitan Grinspun, Peter Allen. 2015-12-22. Folding Deformable Objects using Predictive Simulation and Trajectory Optimization. https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.06922

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