aiqbench analysis
This paper uses the output diversity of a generative robot policy to infer which motions a constrained object allows, then uses that structure to set impedance gains. The main contribution is a control method, but it depends on a learned policy's sampling behavior, so it sits at the intersection of robot learning and classical control. For AI readers, the notable point is the use of policy ensembles as a signal for physical constraints, with a fixed-gain variant that avoids per-step computation. The evidence is limited to reduced constraint-violating contact loads in simulated and real-world experiments, so generality across objects remains to be tested.
Constraint-Decomposed Impedance Control from Generative Policy for Articulated Object Manipulation
arXiv:2610.16316v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Articulated object manipulation tasks such as opening doors, tightening bolts, and pulling drawers impose kinematic constraints on a robot end-effector's motion that neural policies may fail to satisfy. Unlike hybrid force-position control that strictly separates force and position control into orthogonal subspaces, impedance control modulates a mechanical impedance system in the form of a virtual inertia, damping, and stiffness. However, selecting task-appropriate impedance gains remains challenging for robot policies. In this paper, we address this problem for the case of manipulating articulated objects. Our constraint-decomposed impedance control method uses the sampling diversity of a generative policy to estimate the feasible motion directions in twist space. The key idea is to infer the feasible and constrained subspaces of twists from an ensemble of trajectories generated by the policy from the same observation. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the end-effector twists determines the feasible twist subspace, which is then used to form 6x6 impedance gain matrices. For many common articulated objects, the feasible twist subspace is independent of the object configuration, so the subspace and resulting gains are estimated once and held fixed during manipulation, minimizing computational overhead. For less common cases where this independence does not hold, we instead estimate a configuration-independent twist subspace of higher dimension that contains the local feasible subspaces, allowing the same fixed-gain strategy to be used. Experiments across simulated and real-world single- and multi-DoF objects show that the proposed method consistently reduces constraint-violating contact loads relative to isotropic impedance control while maintaining task execution.
Abstract:Articulated object manipulation tasks such as opening doors, tightening bolts, and pulling drawers impose kinematic constraints on a robot end-effector's motion that neural policies may fail to satisfy. Unlike hybrid force-position control that strictly separates force and position control into orthogonal subspaces, impedance control modulates a mechanical impedance system in the form of a virtual inertia, damping, and stiffness. However, selecting task-appropriate impedance gains remains challenging for robot policies. In this paper, we address this problem for the case of manipulating articulated objects. Our constraint-decomposed impedance control method uses the sampling diversity of a generative policy to estimate the feasible motion directions in twist space. The key idea is to infer the feasible and constrained subspaces of twists from an ensemble of trajectories generated by the policy from the same observation. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the end-effector twists determines the feasible twist subspace, which is then used to form 6x6 impedance gain matrices. For many common articulated objects, the feasible twist subspace is independent of the object configuration, so the subspace and resulting gains are estimated once and held fixed during manipulation, minimizing computational overhead. For less common cases where this independence does not hold, we instead estimate a configuration-independent twist subspace of higher dimension that contains the local feasible subspaces, allowing the same fixed-gain strategy to be used. Experiments across simulated and real-world single- and multi-DoF objects show that the proposed method consistently reduces constraint-violating contact loads relative to isotropic impedance control while maintaining task execution.
Accepted to the 10th Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2026), Spotlight. Please cite the CoRL 2026 (PMLR) version. Project page: this https URL
Robotics (cs.RO)
arXiv:2610.16316 [cs.RO]
(or arXiv:2610.16316v1 [cs.RO] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.16316 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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