Vineet Kamat

Yifan Xu, Ziming Luo, Qianwei Wang et al.

Current open-vocabulary scene graph generation algorithms highly rely on both 3D scene point cloud data and posed RGB-D images and thus have limited applications in scenarios where RGB-D images or camera poses are not readily available. To solve this problem, we propose Point2Graph, a novel end-to-end point cloud-based 3D open-vocabulary scene graph generation framework in which the requirement of posed RGB-D image series is eliminated. This hierarchical framework contains room and object detection/segmentation and open-vocabulary classification. For the room layer, we leverage the advantage of merging the geometry-based border detection algorithm with the learning-based region detection to segment rooms and create a "Snap-Lookup" framework for open-vocabulary room classification. In addition, we create an end-to-end pipeline for the object layer to detect and classify 3D objects based solely on 3D point cloud data. Our evaluation results show that our framework can outperform the current state-of-the-art (SOTA) open-vocabulary object and room segmentation and classification algorithm on widely used real-scene datasets.

Yifan Xu, Qizhang Shen, Vineet Kamat et al.

This paper presents KUKAloha, a general, low-cost, and shared-control teleoperation framework designed for construction robot arms. The proposed system employs a leader-follower paradigm in which a lightweight leading arm enables intuitive human guidance for coarse robot motion, while an autonomous perception module based on AprilTag detection performs precise alignment and grasp execution. By explicitly decoupling human control from fine manipulation, KUKAloha improves safety and repeatability when operating large-scale manipulators. We implement the framework on a KUKA robot arm and conduct a usability study with representative construction manipulation tasks. Experimental results demonstrate that KUKAloha reduces operator workload, improves task completion efficiency, and provides a practical solution for scalable demonstration collection and shared human-robot control in construction environments.

Yifan Xu, Vineet Kamat, Carol Menassa

In assistive robotics serving people with disabilities (PWD), accurate place recognition in built environments is crucial to ensure that robots navigate and interact safely within diverse indoor spaces. Language interfaces, particularly those powered by Large Language Models (LLM) and Vision Language Models (VLM), hold significant promise in this context, as they can interpret visual scenes and correlate them with semantic information. However, such interfaces are also known for their hallucinated predictions. In addition, language instructions provided by humans can also be ambiguous and lack precise details about specific locations, objects, or actions, exacerbating the hallucination issue. In this work, we introduce Seeing with Partial Certainty (SwPC) - a framework designed to measure and align uncertainty in VLM-based place recognition, enabling the model to recognize when it lacks confidence and seek assistance when necessary. This framework is built on the theory of conformal prediction to provide statistical guarantees on place recognition while minimizing requests for human help in complex indoor environment settings. Through experiments on the widely used richly-annotated scene dataset Matterport3D, we show that SwPC significantly increases the success rate and decreases the amount of human intervention required relative to the prior art. SwPC can be utilized with any VLMs directly without requiring model fine-tuning, offering a promising, lightweight approach to uncertainty modeling that complements and scales alongside the expanding capabilities of foundational models.

Yifan Xu, Vineet Kamat, Carol Menassa

The global rise in the number of people with physical disabilities, in part due to improvements in post-trauma survivorship and longevity, has amplified the demand for advanced assistive technologies to improve mobility and independence. Autonomous assistive robots, such as smart wheelchairs, require robust capabilities in spatial segmentation and semantic recognition to navigate complex built environments effectively. Place segmentation involves delineating spatial regions like rooms or functional areas, while semantic recognition assigns semantic labels to these regions, enabling accurate localization to user-specific needs. Existing approaches often utilize deep learning; however, these close-vocabulary detection systems struggle to interpret intuitive and casual human instructions. Additionally, most existing methods ignore the uncertainty of the scene recognition problem, leading to low success rates, particularly in ambiguous and complex environments. To address these challenges, we propose an open-vocabulary scene semantic segmentation and detection pipeline leveraging Vision Language Models (VLMs) and Large Language Models (LLMs). Our approach follows a 'Segment Detect Select' framework for open-vocabulary scene classification, enabling adaptive and intuitive navigation for assistive robots in built environments.