ECE PhD Dissertation Defense: Peng Chang

PhD Dissertation Defense: Model-Based Manipulation of Linear Flexible Objects

Peng Chang

Location: Teams Meetings

Abstract: Manipulation of deformable objects plays an important role in various scenarios such as manufacturing, service, healthcare, and security. Linear flexible objects such as cables, wires, and ropes are common in these scenarios. However, the high dimensionality of the linear flexible objects brings challenges to the modeling and planning in manipulation tasks, and automatic manipulation of these objects is computationally expensive due to their infinite degrees of freedom in the free spaces. In this dissertation, we investigate model-based manipulation of linear flexible objects such as cables. We contribute to different models including geometrical and physical models to represent the linear flexible objects. With these models, we then develop manipulation plans and strategies to achieve the automation of the linear flexible object manipulation tasks in both simulation and real-world. Besides, we also investigate human-robot collaboration to complete a sample assembly task involving linear flexible object manipulation.