Events

ARQ Research Seminars - Industry Engagement

Date: Wednesday 17 May 2023 13:00 - 13:30

Location: teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZTRhYWYxYm...

Title: The Use of Tactile Sensing in Robotic Manipulation

Abstract: This talk will discuss the role of tactile sensing in accomplishing continuous in-hand manipulation tasks. Our research proposes a comprehensive framework for end-to-end policy learning incorporating tactile feedback and sim-to-real transfer. We showcase the ability of this approach to finely manipulate a thin cylindrical object, leveraging multiple contacts of a highly skilled robot hand. By effectively utilizing high-dimensional tactile information, our policies control the object's pose to achieve the desired manipulation performance. Our deep reinforcement learning policies are intensively trained in a simulated environment and then transferred to real-world experiments using coordinated model calibration and domain randomization. Comparative studies demonstrate the benefits of using tactile information, and the results from our sim-to-real performance are validated by our real-world experiments.

Bio: Dr. Bidan Huang attained her PhD in Robotics at the University of Bath in 2015, and now holds the position of Senior Researcher at Tencent Robotics X Lab. Prior to this, she worked as a Research Associate at the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Imperial College London, from 2015 to 2018. Additionally, she spent two years as a Visiting Student at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), from 2012 to 2014. Her research interests predominantly lie in the areas of robot learning, control, grasping, and manipulation.