Human-Guided Planning for Complex Manipulation Tasks Using the Screw Geometry of Motion

TL;DR

This paper introduces a human-guided motion planning method for complex robot manipulation tasks that leverages screw geometry to segment demonstrations and generate adaptable plans, enabling robots to perform varied tasks from a single example.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel screw-based segmentation and planning approach that captures motion invariants, allowing flexible task execution from minimal demonstrations.

Findings

Effective segmentation of human demonstrations into screw motions.

Successful planning for diverse manipulation tasks using a single demonstration.

Robustness of the method across various complex scenarios.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel method of motion planning for performing complex manipulation tasks by using human demonstration and exploiting the screw geometry of motion. We consider complex manipulation tasks where there are constraints on the motion of the end effector of the robot. Examples of such tasks include opening a door, opening a drawer, transferring granular material from one container to another with a spoon, and loading dishes to a dishwasher. Our approach consists of two steps: First, using the fact that a motion in the task space of the robot can be approximated by using a sequence of constant screw motions, we segment a human demonstration into a sequence of constant screw motions. Second, we use the segmented screws to generate motion plans via screw-linear interpolation for other instances of the same task. The use of screw segmentation allows us to capture the invariants of the demonstrations in a coordinate-free fashion, thus allowing us to plan for different task instances from just one example. We present extensive experimental results on a variety of manipulation scenarios showing that our method can be used across a wide range of manipulation tasks.