Grasping with Chopsticks: Combating Covariate Shift in Model-free Imitation Learning for Fine Manipulation

Liyiming Ke,Jingqiang Wang,Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee,Byron Boots,Siddhartha Srinivasa,Liyiming Ke,Jingqiang Wang,Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee,Byron Boots,Siddhartha Srinivasa

Billions of people use chopsticks, a simple yet versatile tool, for fine manipulation of everyday objects. The small, curved, and slippery tips of chopsticks pose a challenge for picking up small objects, making them a suitably complex test case. This paper leverages human demonstrations to develop an autonomous chopsticks-equipped robotic manipulator. Due to the lack of accurate models for fine m...