logo QuasiSim

Parameterized Quasi-Physical Simulators for
Dexterous Manipulations Transfer

1Tsinghua University, 2Shanghai AI Laboratory, 3Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute

By optimizing through a quasi-physical simulator curriculum, we enable accurately controlling a simulated dexterous robot hand to track complex human manipulations with changing contact, non-trivial object motions, and intricate tool-using.

Abstract

We explore the dexterous manipulation transfer problem by designing simulators. The task wishes to transfer human manipulations to dexterous robot hand simulations and is inherently difficult due to its intricate, highly-constrained, and discontinuous dynamics and the need to control a dexterous hand with a DoF to accurately replicate human manipulations. Previous approaches that optimize in high-fidelity black-box simulators or a modified one with relaxed constraints only demonstrate limited capabilities or are restricted by insufficient simulation fidelity. We introduce parameterized quasi-physical simulators and a physics curriculum to overcome these limitations. The key ideas are 1) balancing between fidelity and optimizability of the simulation via a curriculum of parameterized simulators, and 2) solving the problem in each of the simulators from the curriculum, with properties ranging from high task optimizability to high fidelity. We successfully enable a dexterous hand to track complex and diverse manipulations in high-fidelity simulated environments, boosting the success rate by 11%+ from the best-performed baseline.

Video

Transferred Dexterous Manipulations and Comparisons

We can accurately track complex manipulations involving rich and changing contacts,
non-trivial object motions, and intricate tool-using.

Manipulating daily objects (mouse).

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Functional tool-using with non-trival object movements.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Functional tool-using.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulations with non-trivial and subtle object movements.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulating the thin bowl.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Functional interactions with rich and changing contacts.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulations with subtle object movements (slight shacking).

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Complicated tool-using with non-trivial object movements.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulating the thin bowl.

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulating daily objects (bunny).

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulating daily objects (bunny).

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Manipulating daily objects (mouse).

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking
(improved from DGrasp)

Ours

Can Reinforcement Learning (RL) Benefit from Incorporating Concepts from Physics Education?

By optimizing DGrasp-Tracking through the physics curriculum, we can noticably enhance its performance,
lifting it from instances of failure to near completion in tracking tasks.



Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking

DGrasp-Tracking
w/ Curriculum

Human Demostration

DGrasp-Tracking

DGrasp-Tracking
w/ Curriculum

Ablation Study

We conduct various ablation studies to validate the effectiveness of crucial designs in our method.



Human Demostration

Ours w/o
Analytical Sim.

Ours w/o
Local Force NN

Ours

Contact

Please contact us at xymeow7@gmail.com if you have any question.

BibTeX

@article{liu2024quasisim,
      title={QuasiSim: Parameterized Quasi-Physical Simulators for Dexterous Manipulations Transfer},
      author={Liu, Xueyi and Lyu, Kangbo and Zhang, Jieqiong and Du, Tao and Yi, Li},
      journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.07988},
      year={2024}
    }