Registering Articulated Objects With Human-in-the-loop Corrections

TL;DR

This paper introduces a human-in-the-loop registration method for articulated objects that automatically estimates object models and allows iterative corrections, improving remote robot task setup involving objects like valves.

Contribution

The work presents a novel registration approach that accounts for object articulation and enables iterative user corrections, enhancing accuracy and usability in remote robotic tasks.

Findings

Improved user performance in registration tasks.

Reduced time on task and task load.

Effective integration into remote valve manipulation system.

Abstract

Remotely programming robots to execute tasks often relies on registering objects of interest in the robot's environment. Frequently, these tasks involve articulating objects such as opening or closing a valve. However, existing human-in-the-loop methods for registering objects do not consider articulations and the corresponding impact to the geometry of the object, which can cause the methods to fail. In this work, we present an approach where the registration system attempts to automatically determine the object model, pose, and articulation for user-selected points using nonlinear fitting and the iterative closest point algorithm. When the fitting is incorrect, the operator can iteratively intervene with corrections after which the system will refit the object. We present an implementation of our fitting procedure for one degree-of-freedom (DOF) objects with revolute joints and evaluate it with a user study that shows that it can improve user performance, in measures of time on task and task load, ease of use, and usefulness compared to a manual registration approach. We also present a situated example that integrates our method into an end-to-end system for articulating a remote valve.