PokeRRT: A Kinodynamic Planning Approach for Poking Manipulation

TL;DR

PokeRRT is a new kinodynamic planning algorithm that leverages poking as a non-prehensile manipulation technique to enhance robot manipulation speed and workspace reachability, outperforming pushing and grasping in various environments.

Contribution

The paper introduces PokeRRT, a novel motion planning algorithm that effectively uses poking for manipulation, expanding the capabilities of robots in cluttered and uncluttered spaces.

Findings

PokeRRT outperforms pushing and grasping in trajectory planning.

Poking increases the robot's reachable workspace.

PokeRRT enables faster manipulation in complex environments.

Abstract

This work introduces PokeRRT, a novel motion planning algorithm that demonstrates poking as an effective non-prehensile manipulation skill to enable fast manipulation of objects and increase the size of a robot's reachable workspace. Our qualitative and quantitative results demonstrate the advantages of poking over pushing and grasping in planning object trajectories through uncluttered and cluttered environments.