Grasping in the Wild: Learning 6DoF Closed-Loop Grasping From Low-Cost Demonstrations

• Published in: IEEE robotics and automation letters Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 4978 - 4985
• Main Authors: Song, Shuran, Zeng, Andy, Lee, Johnny, Funkhouser, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.07.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Cameras; Computer simulation; deep learning for visual perception; Deep learning in grasping and manipulation; Degrees of freedom; Grasping; Grasping (robotics); Grippers; Low cost; Machine learning; Robots; Task analysis; Visualization
• ISSN: 2377-3766; 2377-3766
• DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.3004787

Intelligent manipulation benefits from the capacity to flexibly control an end-effector with high degrees of freedom (DoF) and dynamically react to the environment. However, due to the challenges of collecting effective training data and learning efficiently, most grasping algorithms today are limited to top-down movements and open-loop execution. In this work, we propose a new low-cost hardware interface for collecting grasping demonstrations by people in diverse environments. This data makes it possible to train a robust end-to-end 6DoF closed-loop grasping model with reinforcement learning that transfers to real robots. A key aspect of our grasping model is that it uses "action-view" based rendering to simulate future states with respect to different possible actions. By evaluating these states using a learned value function (e.g., Q-function), our method is able to better select corresponding actions that maximize total rewards (i.e., grasping success). Our final grasping system is able to achieve reliable 6DoF closed-loop grasping of novel objects across various scene configurations, as well as in dynamic scenes with moving objects.