AI Helps Robots Manipulate Objects With Their Whole Bodies
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a way for machines to use whole-body manipulation instead of relying on grippers and other types of end-of-arm tools.
Contact-rich manipulation planning uses an AI technique called “smoothing,” which summarizes many contact events into a smaller number of decisions, to enable even a simple algorithm to quickly identify an effective manipulation plan for the robot.