The Busboy Problem: Efficient Tableware Decluttering Using Consolidation and Multi-Object Grasps

TL;DR

This paper introduces the 'Busboy Problem', focusing on automating efficient decluttering of tableware by using policies for multi-object grasps, significantly improving collection efficiency in robotic tasks.

Contribution

The paper proposes novel grasping policies for multiple items and introduces the Objects per Trip (OpT) metric to evaluate decluttering efficiency improvements.

Findings

1.8x improvement in Objects per Trip (OpT) with multi-object grasps

Effective policies for grasping multiple items simultaneously

Validated results through physical experiments with singulated items

Abstract

We present the "Busboy Problem": automating an efficient decluttering of cups, bowls, and silverware from a planar surface. As grasping and transporting individual items is highly inefficient, we propose policies to generate grasps for multiple items. We introduce the metric of Objects per Trip (OpT) carried by the robot to the collection bin to analyze the improvement seen as a result of our policies. In physical experiments with singulated items, we find that consolidation and multi-object grasps resulted in an 1.8x improvement in OpT, compared to methods without multi-object grasps. See https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/busboyproblem for code and supplemental materials.