arXiv subjects

Zherong Pan

Publications and source records attributed to Zherong Pan.

54 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

LCollision: Fast Generation of Collision-Free Human Poses using Learned Non-Penetration Constraints

We present LCollision, a learning-based method that synthesizes collision-free 3D human poses. At the crux of our approach is a novel deep architecture that simultaneously decodes new human poses from the latent space and predicts colliding body parts. These two components of our architecture are used as the objective function and surrogate hard constraints in a constrained optimization for collision-free human pose generation. A novel aspect of our approach is the use of a bilevel autoencoder that decomposes whole-body collisions into groups of collisions between localized body parts. By solving the constrained optimizations, we show that a significant amount of collision artifacts can be resolved. Furthermore, in a large test set of $2.5\times 10^6$ randomized poses from SCAPE, our architecture achieves a collision-prediction accuracy of $94.1\%$ with $80\times$ speedup over exact collision detection algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, LCollision is the first approach that accelerates collision detection and resolves penetrations using a neural network.

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arXiv2020

Implicit Integration for Articulated Bodies with Contact via the Nonconvex Maximal Dissipation Principle

We present non-convex maximal dissipation principle (NMDP), a time integration scheme for articulated bodies with simultaneous contacts. Our scheme resolves contact forces via the maximal dissipation principle (MDP). Prior MDP solvers compute contact forces via convex programming by assuming linearized dynamics integrated using the forward multistep scheme. Instead, we consider the coupled system of nonlinear Newton-Euler dynamics and MDP, which is time-integrated using the backward integration scheme. We show that the coupled system of equations can be solved efficiently using the projected gradient method with guaranteed convergence. We evaluate our method by predicting several locomotion trajectories for a quadruped robot. The results show that our NMDP scheme has several desirable properties including: (1) generalization to novel contact models; (2) superior stability under large timestep sizes; (3) consistent trajectory generation under varying timestep sizes.

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arXiv2020

Decision Making in Joint Push-Grasp Action Space for Large-Scale Object Sorting

We present a planner for large-scale (un)labeled object sorting tasks, which uses two types of manipulation actions: overhead grasping and planar pushing. The grasping action offers completeness guarantee under mild assumptions, and planar pushing is an acceleration strategy that moves multiple objects at once. Our main contribution is twofold: (1) We propose a bilevel planning algorithm. Our high-level planner makes efficient, near-optimal choices between pushing and grasping actions based on a cost model. Our low-level planner computes one-step greedy pushing or grasping actions. (2) We propose a novel low-level push planner that can find one-step greedy pushing actions in a semi-discrete search space. The structure of the search space allows us to efficient We show that, for sorting up to $200$ objects, our planner can find near-optimal actions with $10$ seconds of computation on a desktop machine.

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arXiv2020

Generating Grasp Poses for a High-DOF Gripper Using Neural Networks

We present a learning-based method for representing grasp poses of a high-DOF hand using neural networks. Due to redundancy in such high-DOF grippers, there exists a large number of equally effective grasp poses for a given target object, making it difficult for the neural network to find consistent grasp poses. We resolve this ambiguity by generating an augmented dataset that covers many possible grasps for each target object and train our neural networks using a consistency loss function to identify a one-to-one mapping from objects to grasp poses. We further enhance the quality of neural-network-predicted grasp poses using a collision loss function to avoid penetrations. We use an object dataset that combines the BigBIRD Database, the KIT Database, the YCB Database, and the Grasp Dataset to show that our method can generate high-DOF grasp poses with higher accuracy than supervised learning baselines. The quality of the grasp poses is on par with the groundtruth poses in the dataset. In addition, our method is robust and can handle noisy object models such as those constructed from multi-view depth images, allowing our method to be implemented on a 25-DOF Shadow Hand hardware platform.

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arXiv2020

Deep Differentiable Grasp Planner for High-DOF Grippers

We present an end-to-end algorithm for training deep neural networks to grasp novel objects. Our algorithm builds all the essential components of a grasping system using a forward-backward automatic differentiation approach, including the forward kinematics of the gripper, the collision between the gripper and the target object, and the metric for grasp poses. In particular, we show that a generalized Q1 grasp metric is defined and differentiable for inexact grasps generated by a neural network, and the derivatives of our generalized Q1 metric can be computed from a sensitivity analysis of the induced optimization problem. We show that the derivatives of the (self-)collision terms can be efficiently computed from a watertight triangle mesh of low-quality. Altogether, our algorithm allows for the computation of grasp poses for high-DOF grippers in an unsupervised mode with no ground truth data, or it improves the results in a supervised mode using a small dataset. Our new learning algorithm significantly simplifies the data preparation for learning-based grasping systems and leads to higher qualities of learned grasps on common 3D shape datasets [7, 49, 26, 25], achieving a 22% higher success rate on physical hardware and a 0.12 higher value on the Q1 grasp quality metric.

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arXiv2020

Realtime Simulation of Thin-Shell Deformable Materials using CNN-Based Mesh Embedding

We address the problem of accelerating thin-shell deformable object simulations by dimension reduction. We present a new algorithm to embed a high-dimensional configuration space of deformable objects in a low-dimensional feature space, where the configurations of objects and feature points have approximate one-to-one mapping. Our key technique is a graph-based convolutional neural network (CNN) defined on meshes with arbitrary topologies and a new mesh embedding approach based on physics-inspired loss term. We have applied our approach to accelerate high-resolution thin shell simulations corresponding to cloth-like materials, where the configuration space has tens of thousands of degrees of freedom. We show that our physics-inspired embedding approach leads to higher accuracy compared with prior mesh embedding methods. Finally, we show that the temporal evolution of the mesh in the feature space can also be learned using a recurrent neural network (RNN) leading to fully learnable physics simulators. After training our learned simulator runs $500-10000\times$ faster and the accuracy is high enough for robot manipulation tasks.

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arXiv2019

Generating Optimal Grasps Under A Stress-Minimizing Metric

We present stress-minimizing (SM) metric, a new metric of grasp qualities. Unlike previous metrics that ignore the material of target objects, we assume that target objects are made of homogeneous isotopic materials. SM metric measures the maximal resistible external wrenches without causing fracture in the target objects. Therefore, SM metric is useful for robot grasping valuable and fragile objects. In this paper, we analyze the properties of this new metric, propose grasp planning algorithms to generate globally optimal grasps maximizing the SM metric, and compare the performance of the SM metric and a conventional metric. Our experiments show that SM metric is aware of the geometries of target objects while the conventional metric are not. We also show that the computational cost of the SM metric is on par with that of the conventional metric.

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arXiv2019

Globally Optimal Joint Search of Topology and Trajectory for Planar Linkages

We present a method to find globally optimal topology and trajectory jointly for planar linkages. Planar linkage structures can generate complex end-effector trajectories using only a single rotational actuator, which is very useful in building low-cost robots. We address the problem of searching for the optimal topology and geometry of these structures. However, since topology changes are non-smooth and non-differentiable, conventional gradient-based searches cannot be used. We formulate this problem as a mixed-integer convex programming (MICP) problem, for which a global optimum can be found using the branch-and-bound (BB) algorithm. Compared to existing methods, our experiments show that the proposed approach finds complex linkage structures more efficiently and generates end-effector trajectories more accurately.

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arXiv2019

Cloth Manipulation Using Random-Forest-Based Imitation Learning

We present a novel approach for robust manipulation of high-DOF deformable objects such as cloth. Our approach uses a random forest-based controller that maps the observed visual features of the cloth to an optimal control action of the manipulator. The topological structure of this random forest-based controller is determined automatically based on the training data consisting visual features and optimal control actions. This enables us to integrate the overall process of training data classification and controller optimization into an imitation learning (IL) approach. Our approach enables learning of robust control policy for cloth manipulation with guarantees on convergence.We have evaluated our approach on different multi-task cloth manipulation benchmarks such as flattening, folding and twisting. In practice, our approach works well with different deformable features learned based on the specific task or deep learning. Moreover, our controller outperforms a simple or piecewise linear controller in terms of robustness to noise. In addition, our approach is easy to implement and does not require much parameter tuning.

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arXiv2018

Fast Motion Planning for High-DOF Robot Systems Using Hierarchical System Identification

We present an efficient algorithm for motion planning and control of a robot system with a high number of degrees-of-freedom. These include high-DOF soft robots or an articulated robot interacting with a deformable environment. Our approach takes into account dynamics constraints and present a novel technique to accelerate the forward dynamic computation using a data-driven method. We precompute the forward dynamic function of the robot system on a hierarchical adaptive grid. Furthermore, we exploit the properties of underactuated robot systems and perform these computations for a few DOFs. We provide error bounds for our approximate forward dynamics computation and use our approach for optimization-based motion planning and reinforcement-learning-based feedback control. Our formulation is used for motion planning of two high DOF robot systems: a high-DOF line-actuated elastic robot arm and an underwater swimming robot operating in water. As compared to prior techniques based on exact dynamic function computation, we observe one to two orders of magnitude improvement in performance.

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arXiv2018

Time Integrating Articulated Body Dynamics Using Position-Based Collocation Method

We present a new time integrator for articulated body dynamics. We formulate the governing equations of the dynamics using only the position variables and recast the position-based articulated dynamics as an optimization problem. Our reformulation allows us to integrate the dynamics in a fully implicit manner without computing high-order derivatives. Therefore, under arbitrarily large timestep sizes, the stability of our time integration scheme is guaranteed using an off-the-shelf numerical optimizer. In addition to stability, we show that, similar to the Runge-Kutta method, the accuracy of our time integrator can also be increased arbitrarily by using a high-order collocation method. We provide efficient algorithms to perform time integration using our position-based formulation. We show that each iteration of optimization has a complexity of O(N) using Quasi-Newton method or O(N^2) using Newton's method, where N is the number of links. Finally, our method is highly parallelizable and can be accelerated using a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). We highlight the efficiency and stability of our method on different benchmarks and compare the performance with prior articulated body dynamics simulation methods based on the Newton-Euler's equation. Our method is stable under a timestep size as large as 0.1s. Using a larger timestep size and less timesteps, our method achieves up to 4 times speedup on a single-core CPU. With GPU acceleration, we observe an additional 3-6 times speedup over a 4-core CPU.

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arXiv2018

Learning-based Feedback Controller for Deformable Object Manipulation

In this paper, we present a general learning-based framework to automatically visual-servo control the position and shape of a deformable object with unknown deformation parameters. The servo-control is accomplished by learning a feedback controller that determines the robotic end-effector's movement according to the deformable object's current status. This status encodes the object's deformation behavior by using a set of observed visual features, which are either manually designed or automatically extracted from the robot's sensor stream. A feedback control policy is then optimized to push the object toward a desired featured status efficiently. The feedback policy can be learned either online or offline. Our online policy learning is based on the Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), which can achieve fast and accurate manipulation and is robust to small perturbations. An offline imitation learning framework is also proposed to achieve a control policy that is robust to large perturbations in the human-robot interaction. We validate the performance of our controller on a set of deformable object manipulation tasks and demonstrate that our method can achieve effective and accurate servo-control for general deformable objects with a wide variety of goal settings.

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arXiv2017

Active Animations of Reduced Deformable Models with Environment Interactions

We present an efficient spacetime optimization method to automatically generate animations for a general volumetric, elastically deformable body. Our approach can model the interactions between the body and the environment and automatically generate active animations. We model the frictional contact forces using contact invariant optimization and the fluid drag forces using a simplified model. To handle complex objects, we use a reduced deformable model and present a novel hybrid optimizer to search for the local minima efficiently. This allows us to use long-horizon motion planning to automatically generate animations such as walking, jumping, swimming, and rolling. We evaluate the approach on different shapes and animations, including deformable body navigation and combining with an open-loop controller for realtime forward simulation.

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arXiv2017

Feedback Motion Planning for Liquid Transfer using Supervised Learning

We present a novel motion planning algorithm for transferring a liquid body from a source to a target container. Our approach uses a receding-horizon optimization strategy that takes into account fluid constraints and avoids collisions. In order to efficiently handle the high-dimensional configuration space of a liquid body, we use system identification to learn its dynamics characteristics using a neural network. We generate the training dataset using stochastic optimization in a transfer-problem-specific search space. The runtime feedback motion planner is used for real-time planning and we observe high success rate in our simulated 2D and 3D fluid transfer benchmarks.

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arXiv2016

Detailed Garment Recovery from a Single-View Image

Most recent garment capturing techniques rely on acquiring multiple views of clothing, which may not always be readily available, especially in the case of pre-existing photographs from the web. As an alternative, we pro- pose a method that is able to compute a rich and realistic 3D model of a human body and its outfits from a single photograph with little human in- teraction. Our algorithm is not only able to capture the global shape and geometry of the clothing, it can also extract small but important details of cloth, such as occluded wrinkles and folds. Unlike previous methods using full 3D information (i.e. depth, multi-view images, or sampled 3D geom- etry), our approach achieves detailed garment recovery from a single-view image by using statistical, geometric, and physical priors and a combina- tion of parameter estimation, semantic parsing, shape recovery, and physics- based cloth simulation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm by re-purposing the reconstructed garments for virtual try-on and garment transfer applications, as well as cloth animation for digital characters.

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arXiv2016

Efficient Optimal Control of Smoke using Spacetime Multigrid

We present a novel algorithm to control the physically-based animation of smoke. Given a set of keyframe smoke shapes, we compute a dense sequence of control force fields that can drive the smoke shape to match several keyframes at certain time instances. Our approach formulates this control problem as a PDE constrained spacetime optimization and computes locally optimal control forces as the stationary point of the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. In order to reduce the high complexity of multiple passes of fluid resimulation, we utilize the coherence between consecutive fluid simulation passes and update our solution using a novel spacetime full approximation scheme (STFAS). We demonstrate the benefits of our approach by computing accurate solutions on 2D and 3D benchmarks. In practice, we observe more than an order of magnitude improvement over prior methods.

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arXiv2016

Modelling Developable Ribbons Using Ruling Bending Coordinates

This paper presents a new method for modelling the dynamic behaviour of developable ribbons, two dimensional strips with much smaller width than length. Instead of approximating such surface with a general triangle mesh, we characterize it by a set of creases and bending angles across them. This representation allows the developability to be satisfied everywhere while still leaves enough degree of freedom to represent salient global deformation. We show how the potential and kinetic energies can be properly discretized in this configuration space and time integrated in a fully implicit manner. The result is a dynamic simulator with several desirable features: We can model non-trivial deformation using much fewer elements than conventional FEM method. It is stable under extreme deformation, external force or large timestep size. And we can readily handle various user constraints in Euclidean space.

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arXiv2016

Motion Planning for Fluid Manipulation using Simplified Dynamics

We present an optimization-based motion planning algorithm to compute a smooth, collision-free trajectory for a manipulator used to transfer a liquid from a source to a target container. We take into account fluid dynamics constraints as part of trajectory computation. In order to avoid the high complexity of exact fluid simulation, we introduce a simplified dynamics model based on physically inspired approximations and system identification. Our optimization approach can incorporate various other constraints such as collision avoidance with the obstacles, kinematic and dynamics constraints of the manipulator, and fluid dynamics characteristics. We demonstrate the performance of our planner on different benchmarks corresponding to various obstacles and container shapes. Furthermore, we also evaluate its accuracy by validating the motion plan using an accurate but computationally costly Navier-Stokes fluid simulation.

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