Lecture

Mechanical Search on Shelves: Efficient Stacking and Destacking

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture presents a paper on Mechanical Search on Shelves with Efficient Stacking and Destacking of Objects, focusing on the optimization of object retrieval from cluttered environments. The framework assumes stable poses of objects and aims to reveal the target using minimal actions. Various policies like DARSS and MCTSSS are discussed, along with related works and physical evaluations using a Fetch robot. The lecture emphasizes rearrangement, stacking, and destacking techniques, as well as the 'Bluction' tool combining a pushing blade and suction cup for efficient search. Simulation evaluations and occupancy distribution analysis are also covered.

Official source

Related concepts (21)

Simulation

A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation. Simulation is used in many contexts, such as simulation of technology for performance tuning or optimizing, safety engineering, testing, training, education, and video games.

Policy analysis

Policy analysis or public policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of laws and elected officials. People who regularly use policy analysis skills and techniques on the job, particularly those who use it as a major part of their job duties are generally known by the title Policy Analyst.

Program evaluation

Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. In both the public sector and private sector, as well as the voluntary sector, stakeholders might be required to assess—under law or charter—or want to know whether the programs they are funding, implementing, voting for, receiving or opposing are producing the promised effect.

Simulation video game

Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such as training, analysis, prediction, or entertainment. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, and the player is allowed to control a character or environment freely. Well-known examples are war games, business games, and role play simulation.

Computer simulation

Computer simulation is the process of mathematical modelling, performed on a computer, which is designed to predict the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be determined by comparing their results to the real-world outcomes they aim to predict. Computer simulations have become a useful tool for the mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), astrophysics, climatology, chemistry, biology and manufacturing, as well as human systems in economics, psychology, social science, health care and engineering.

Related lectures (64)

Optimization and Simulation: Introduction to Simulation

Introduces state-of-the-art methods in optimization and simulation, covering topics like statistical analysis, variance reduction, and simulation projects.

Modeling Prisoner's Dilemma: Naive vs. Optimal

Explores the modeling of the '100 prisoners' problem and compares naive and optimal approaches.

Simulation & Optimization: Poisson Process & Random Numbers

Explores simulation pitfalls, random numbers, discrete & continuous distributions, and Monte-Carlo integration.

Optimization and Simulation

Explores optimization, simulation, data analysis, and the importance of considering more than just the mean in engineering systems.