2022/04/28 by Sunwoo Kim, Maks Sorokin, Kim, Sunwoo +5 · 2 citations
Engineering · Computer Science · #Robotic Locomotion and Control #Reinforcement Learning in Robotics #Robot Manipulation and Learning
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2204.13336
A motion-based control interface promises flexible robot operations in dangerous environments by combining user intuitions with the robot's motor capabilities. However, designing a motion interface for non-humanoid robots, such as quadrupeds or hexapods, is not straightforward because different dynamics and control strategies govern their movements. We propose a novel motion control system that allows a human user to operate various motor tasks seamlessly on a quadrupedal robot. We first retarget the captured human motion into the corresponding robot motion with proper semantics using supervised learning and post-processing techniques. Then we apply the motion imitation learning with curriculum learning to develop a control policy that can track the given retargeted reference. We further improve the performance of both motion retargeting and motion imitation by training a set of experts. As we demonstrate, a user can execute various motor tasks using our system, including standing, sitting, tilting, manipulating, walking, and turning, on simulated and real quadrupeds. We also conduct a set of studies to analyze the performance gain induced by each component.