The article discusses a framework for autonomous cloth manipulation in robotics. This is a challenge due to the deformable nature of cloth, requiring a control method with infinite degrees of freedom for shape deformation. The authors propose a differentiable modeling of cloth dynamics using an Extended Position-based Dynamics (XPBD) algorithm. This is combined with physics-aware regularization terms for better results, such as trajectory smoothness and elastic potential energy. Safety constraints, like obstacle avoidance, can also be included. The approach is tested on a surgical robot, demonstrating feasibility.
Publication date: 22 Sep 2023
Project Page: Not provided
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.11655
