papers

Publications (38)

cs.RO2016

Learning the Problem-Optimum Map: Analysis and Application to Global Optimization in Robotics

Kris Hauser

This paper describes a data-driven framework for approximate global optimization in which precomputed solutions to a sample of problems are retrieved and adapted during online use…

cs.RO2016

Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Robot Learning and Planning (RLP 2016)

Nancy Amato, Charles Anderson, Gregory Chirikjian +13

Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Robot Learning and Planning (RLP 2016)

cs.AI2013

Artificial Intelligence Framework for Simulating Clinical Decision-Making: A Markov Decision Process Approach

Casey C. Bennett, Kris Hauser

In the modern healthcare system, rapidly expanding costs/complexity, the growing myriad of treatment options, and exploding information streams that often do not effectively reach…

cs.RO2024

Integrating Open-World Shared Control in Immersive Avatars

Patrick Naughton, James Seungbum Nam, Andrew Stratton +1

Teleoperated avatar robots allow people to transport their manipulation skills to environments that may be difficult or dangerous to work in. Current systems are able to give opera…

cs.RO2025

Particle-Grid Neural Dynamics for Learning Deformable Object Models from RGB-D Videos

Kaifeng Zhang, Baoyu Li, Kris Hauser +1

Modeling the dynamics of deformable objects is challenging due to their diverse physical properties and the difficulty of estimating states from limited visual information. We addr…

cs.RO2019

Discontinuity-Sensitive Optimal Control Learning by Mixture of Experts

Gao Tang, Kris Hauser

This paper proposes a discontinuity-sensitive approach to learn the solutions of parametric optimal control problems with high accuracy. Many tasks, ranging from model predictive c…

cs.RO2026

Localized Graph-Based Neural Dynamics Models for Terrain Manipulation

Chaoqi Liu, Yunzhu Li, Kris Hauser

Predictive models can be particularly helpful for robots to effectively manipulate terrains in construction sites and extraterrestrial surfaces. However, terrain state representati…

cs.RO2024

Characterizing the Complexity of Social Robot Navigation Scenarios

Andrew Stratton, Kris Hauser, Christoforos Mavrogiannis

Social robot navigation algorithms are often demonstrated in overly simplified scenarios, prohibiting the extraction of practical insights about their relevance to real-world domai…

cs.RO2026

Flexible Multitask Learning with Factorized Diffusion Policy

Chaoqi Liu, Haonan Chen, Sigmund H. Høeg +4

Multitask learning poses significant challenges due to the highly multimodal and diverse nature of robot action distributions. However, effectively fitting policies to these comple…

cs.RO2024

Simultaneous Trajectory Optimization and Contact Selection for Contact-rich Manipulation with High-Fidelity Geometry

Mengchao Zhang, Devesh K. Jha, Arvind U. Raghunathan +1

Contact-implicit trajectory optimization (CITO) is an effective method to plan complex trajectories for various contact-rich systems including manipulation and locomotion. CITO for…

cs.RO2020

Decision Making in Joint Push-Grasp Action Space for Large-Scale Object Sorting

Zherong Pan, Kris Hauser

We present a planner for large-scale (un)labeled object sorting tasks, which uses two types of manipulation actions: overhead grasping and planar pushing. The grasping action offer…

cs.RO2024

Autonomous Excavation of Challenging Terrain using Oscillatory Primitives and Adaptive Impedance Control

Noah Franceschini, Pranay Thangeda, Melkior Ornik +1

This paper addresses the challenge of autonomous excavation of challenging terrains, in particular those that are prone to jamming and inter-particle adhesion when tackled by a sta…

cs.RO2023

Simultaneous Trajectory Optimization and Contact Selection for Multi-Modal Manipulation Planning

Mengchao Zhang, Devesh K. Jha, Arvind U. Raghunathan +1

Complex dexterous manipulations require switching between prehensile and non-prehensile grasps, and sliding and pivoting the object against the environment. This paper presents a m…

cs.RO2024

AdaptiGraph: Material-Adaptive Graph-Based Neural Dynamics for Robotic Manipulation

Kaifeng Zhang, Baoyu Li, Kris Hauser +1

Predictive models are a crucial component of many robotic systems. Yet, constructing accurate predictive models for a variety of deformable objects, especially those with unknown p…

cs.RO2022

On-Device CPU Scheduling for Sense-React Systems

Aditi Partap, Samuel Grayson, Muhammad Huzaifa +5

Sense-react systems (e.g. robotics and AR/VR) have to take highly responsive real-time actions, driven by complex decisions involving a pipeline of sensing, perception, planning, a…

cs.RO2018

Stable bin packing of non-convex 3D objects with a robot manipulator

Fan Wang, Kris Hauser

Recent progress in the field of robotic manipulation has generated interest in fully automatic object packing in warehouses. This paper proposes a formulation of the packing proble…

cs.RO2018

Unified Multi-Contact Fall Mitigation Planning for Humanoids via Contact Transition Tree Optimization

Shihao Wang, Kris Hauser

This paper presents a multi-contact approach to generalized humanoid fall mitigation planning that unifies inertial shaping, protective stepping, and hand contact strategies. The p…

cs.RO2024

Boundary-Aware Value Function Generation for Safe Stochastic Motion Planning

Junhong Xu, Kai Yin, Jason M. Gregory +2

Navigation safety is critical for many autonomous systems such as self-driving vehicles in an urban environment. It requires an explicit consideration of boundary constraints that…

cs.RO2024

Analysis and Perspectives on the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Competition

Kris Hauser, Eleanor Watson, Joonbum Bae +25

The ANA Avatar XPRIZE was a four-year competition to develop a robotic "avatar" system to allow a human operator to sense, communicate, and act in a remote environment as though ph…

cs.CV2023

On the Overconfidence Problem in Semantic 3D Mapping

Joao Marcos Correia Marques, Albert Zhai, Shenlong Wang +1

Semantic 3D mapping, the process of fusing depth and image segmentation information between multiple views to build 3D maps annotated with object classes in real-time, is a recent…

cs.RO2021

Fast UAV Trajectory Optimization using Bilevel Optimization with Analytical Gradients

Weidong Sun, Gao Tang, Kris Hauser

We present an efficient optimization framework that solves trajectory optimization problems by decoupling state variables from timing variables, thereby decomposing a challenging n…

cs.RO2021

Optimized Coverage Planning for UV Surface Disinfection

Joao Marcos Correia Marques, Ramya Ramalingam, Zherong Pan +1

UV radiation has been used as a disinfection strategy to deactivate a wide range of pathogens, but existing irradiation strategies do not ensure sufficient exposure of all environm…

cs.RO2024

Attentiveness Map Estimation for Haptic Teleoperation of Mobile Robot Obstacle Avoidance and Approach

Ninghan Zhong, Kris Hauser

Haptic feedback can improve safety of teleoperated robots when situational awareness is limited or operators are inattentive. Standard potential field approaches increase haptic re…

cs.RO2017

Analysis and Observations from the First Amazon Picking Challenge

Nikolaus Correll, Kostas E. Bekris, Dmitry Berenson +7

This paper presents a overview of the inaugural Amazon Picking Challenge along with a summary of a survey conducted among the 26 participating teams. The challenge goal was to desi…

cs.RO2026

FOUND-IT: Foundation-model-first Task-driven 3D Scene Graphs with Granularity on Demand

Dominic Maggio, Nicolas Gorlo, Kris Hauser +1

We present the first approach to build hierarchical task-driven 3D scene graphs of arbitrary indoor or outdoor environments using an uncalibrated monocular camera in real-time. We…

cs.RO2024

Efficient Automatic Tuning for Data-driven Model Predictive Control via Meta-Learning

Baoyu Li, William Edwards, Kris Hauser

AutoMPC is a Python package that automates and optimizes data-driven model predictive control. However, it can be computationally expensive and unstable when exploring large search…

cs.RO2020

Toward Autonomous Robotic Micro-Suturing using Optical Coherence Tomography Calibration and Path Planning

Yuan Tian, Mark Draelos, Gao Tang +4

Robotic automation has the potential to assist human surgeons in performing suturing tasks in microsurgery, and in order to do so a robot must be able to guide a needle with sub-mi…

cs.RO2014

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Robotics Challenges and Vision (RCV2013)

Aitor Aladren, Sasa Bodiroza, Hamidreza Chitsaz +12

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Robotics Challenges and Vision (RCV2013)

cs.RO2022

Automated Heart and Lung Auscultation in Robotic Physical Examinations

Yifan Zhu, Alexander Smith, Kris Hauser

This paper presents the first implementation of autonomous robotic auscultation of heart and lung sounds. To select auscultation locations that generate high-quality sounds, a Baye…

cs.RO2026

Simulation-Ready Cluttered Scene Estimation via Physics-aware Joint Shape and Pose Optimization

Wei-Cheng Huang, Jiaheng Han, Xiaohan Ye +2

Estimating simulation-ready scenes from real-world observations is crucial for downstream planning and policy learning tasks. Regretfully, existing methods struggle in cluttered en…

cs.RO2015

Asymptotically Optimal Planning by Feasible Kinodynamic Planning in State-Cost Space

Kris Hauser, Yilun Zhou

This paper presents an equivalence between feasible kinodynamic planning and optimal kinodynamic planning, in that any optimal planning problem can be transformed into a series of…

cs.RO2025

Safe Leaf Manipulation for Accurate Shape and Pose Estimation of Occluded Fruits

Shaoxiong Yao, Sicong Pan, Maren Bennewitz +1

Fruit monitoring plays an important role in crop management, and rising global fruit consumption combined with labor shortages necessitates automated monitoring with robots. Howeve…

cs.RO2023

Learning and Autonomy for Extraterrestrial Terrain Sampling: An Experience Report from OWLAT Deployment

Pranay Thangeda, Ashish Goel, Erica Tevere +6

Extraterrestrial autonomous lander missions increasingly demand adaptive capabilities to handle the unpredictable and diverse nature of the terrain. This paper discusses the deploy…

cs.RO2023

Few-shot Adaptation for Manipulating Granular Materials Under Domain Shift

Yifan Zhu, Pranay Thangeda, Melkior Ornik +1

Autonomous lander missions on extraterrestrial bodies will need to sample granular material while coping with domain shift, no matter how well a sampling strategy is tuned on Earth…

cs.RO2024

Few-shot Scooping Under Domain Shift via Simulated Maximal Deployment Gaps

Yifan Zhu, Pranay Thangeda, Erica L Tevere +5

Autonomous lander missions on extraterrestrial bodies need to sample granular materials while coping with domain shifts, even when sampling strategies are extensively tuned on Eart…

cs.RO2023

3D Force and Contact Estimation for a Soft-Bubble Visuotactile Sensor Using FEM

Jing-Chen Peng, Shaoxiong Yao, Kris Hauser

Soft-bubble tactile sensors have the potential to capture dense contact and force information across a large contact surface. However, it is difficult to extract contact forces dir…

cs.RO2020

Implicit Integration for Articulated Bodies with Contact via the Nonconvex Maximal Dissipation Principle

Zherong Pan, Kris Hauser

We present non-convex maximal dissipation principle (NMDP), a time integration scheme for articulated bodies with simultaneous contacts. Our scheme resolves contact forces via the…

cs.RO2025

Map Space Belief Prediction for Manipulation-Enhanced Mapping

Joao Marcos Correia Marques, Nils Dengler, Tobias Zaenker +4

Searching for objects in cluttered environments requires selecting efficient viewpoints and manipulation actions to remove occlusions and reduce uncertainty in object locations, sh…