As robots make their way out of factories into human environments, outer space, and
beyond, they require the skill to manipulate their environment in multifarious, unforeseeable …

We would like to give robots the ability to position and orient parts in the plane by pushing,
particularly when the parts are too large or heavy to be grasped and lifted. Unfortunately, the …

This paper proposes a strategy for transporting a large object to a goal using a large number
of mobile robots that are significantly smaller than the object. The robots only push the object …

Simulating rigid collisions among arbitrary shapes is notoriously difficult due to complex
geometry and the strong non-linearity of the interactions. While graph neural network (GNN) …

This article presents an offline solution and online approximation to the hybrid control
problem of planar non-prehensile manipulation. Hybrid dynamics and underactuation are …

The goal of this article is to develop practical descriptions of the relationship between forces
and motions in sliding manipu lation. We begin by reviewing the limit surface, a concept from …

In this paper, we study the problem of predicting the acceleration of a set of rigid, 3-
dimensional bodies in contact with Coulomb friction. The nonlinearity of Coulomb's law …

This paper explores the manipulation of a grasped object by pushing it against its
environment. Relying on precise arm motions and detailed models of frictional contact …

This paper studies the use of pushing actions to orient and trans late objects in the plane.
The authors use linear normal pushes, which are straight-line pushes in a direction normal …

Graspless manipulation refers to operations in which a robot attempts to change the position
and posture of an object without grasping it. Typical examples of graspless manipulation …