2024/08/18 by Yang Wen, Wanxin Jin, Yang, Wen +1 · 3 citations
Engineering · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Muscle activation and electromyography studies #Robot Manipulation and Learning #Robotics (cs.RO) #Teleoperation and Haptic Systems
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.09612
openalex publication_date 2024/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper, we propose ContactSDF, a method that uses signed distance functions (SDFs) to approximate multi-contact models, including both collision detection and time-stepping routines. ContactSDF first establishes an SDF using the supporting plane representation of an object for collision detection, and then uses the generated contact dual cones to build a second SDF for time-stepping prediction of the next state. Those two SDFs create a differentiable and closed-form multi-contact dynamic model for state prediction, enabling efficient model learning and optimization for contact-rich manipulation. We perform extensive simulation experiments to show the effectiveness of ContactSDF for model learning and real-time control of dexterous manipulation. We further evaluate the ContactSDF on a hardware Allegro hand for on-palm reorientation tasks. Results show with around 2 minutes of learning on hardware, the ContactSDF achieves high-quality dexterous manipulation at a frequency of 30-60Hz. Project page https://yangwen-1102.github.io/contactsdf.github.io/