Constraints and Planning for Forceful Robotic Manipulation

Explore the intricacies of multi-stage forceful manipulation tasks in robotics through this comprehensive lecture. Delve into the challenges of reasoning over interlocking force and motion constraints across discrete and continuous choices. Learn how to formalize constraints for tasks where exerting substantial forces is crucial, such as twisting nuts on bolts or pulling nails with hammer claws. Discover how these constraints define task and motion planning problems, and examine strategies for solving them to determine both discrete action sequences and continuous action parameters. Gain insights from Rachel Holladay, an EECS PhD Student at MIT, as she shares her research on developing algorithms for dexterous and composable robotic manipulation and planning. Understand the importance of reasoning over both force and motion constraints in enabling robots to complete complex manipulation tasks.