Kazuhiro Kosuge

Dayuan Chen, Kai Tang, Yukuan Zhang et al.

This paper presents a phase-conditioned, force-aware framework for robust deformable object manipulation. Standard imitation learning policies such as Action Chunking with Transformers (ACT) rely on a Markovian assumption at inference, causing state aliasing when visually similar observations require contradictory actions and preventing autonomous recovery from execution failures. We address this with a closed-loop hierarchical architecture. A FiLM-conditioned ACT encoder modulates feature extraction based on the current task phase, enabling a single unified policy to produce phase-specific behaviors while sharing action dynamics across phases. A multi-modal phase predictor fusing visual, force, and pose feedback estimates the phase in real time, detecting contact failures that are invisible to vision alone and autonomously triggering recovery trajectories. The system is completed by a hybrid impedance controller for compliant execution and a haptic teleoperation interface for force-aware data collection. Ablation studies show that FiLM-based modulation significantly outperforms both unconditioned and token-level conditioned baselines, and t-SNE analysis confirms that FiLM induces well-separated, phase-specific feature representations. Validated on hanging and removing a T-shirt with dual arms, the closed-loop system improves the hanging success rate from 56\% to 87\% through autonomous error recovery. Code and videos: https://leledeyuan00.github.io/phaser/

Yajun Xu, Shogo Arai, Diyi Liu et al.

Instance segmentation is an important pre-processing task in numerous real-world applications, such as robotics, autonomous vehicles, and human-computer interaction. Compared with the rapid development of deep learning for two-dimensional (2D) image tasks, deep learning-based instance segmentation of 3D point cloud still has a lot of room for development. In particular, distinguishing a large number of occluded objects of the same class is a highly challenging problem, which is seen in a robotic bin-picking. In a usual bin-picking scene, many identical objects are stacked together and the model of the objects is known. Thus, the semantic information can be ignored; instead, the focus in the bin-picking is put on the segmentation of instances. Based on this task requirement, we propose a Fast Point Cloud Clustering (FPCC) for instance segmentation of bin-picking scene. FPCC includes a network named FPCC-Net and a fast clustering algorithm. FPCC-net has two subnets, one for inferring the geometric centers for clustering and the other for describing features of each point. FPCC-Net extracts features of each point and infers geometric center points of each instance simultaneously. After that, the proposed clustering algorithm clusters the remaining points to the closest geometric center in feature embedding space. Experiments show that FPCC also surpasses the existing works in bin-picking scenes and is more computationally efficient. Our code and data are available at https://github.com/xyjbaal/FPCC.

Diego Felipe Paez Granados, Breno A. Yamamoto, Hiroko Kamide et al.

This letter presents a physical human-robot interaction scenario in which a robot guides and performs the role of a teacher within a defined dance training framework. A combined cognitive and physical feedback of performance is proposed for assisting the skill learning process. Direct contact cooperation has been designed through an adaptive impedance-based controller that adjusts according to the partner's performance in the task. In measuring performance, a scoring system has been designed using the concept of progressive teaching (PT). The system adjusts the difficulty based on the user's number of practices and performance history. Using the proposed method and a baseline constant controller, comparative experiments have shown that the PT presents better performance in the initial stage of skill learning. An analysis of the subjects' perception of comfort, peace of mind, and robot performance have shown a significant difference at the p < .01 level, favoring the PT algorithm.