Interactive Navigation for Legged Manipulators with Learned Arm-Pushing Controller

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Bi, Zhihai, Chen, Kai, Zheng, Chunxin, Li, Yulin, Li, Haoang, Ma, Jun
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Bi, Zhihai
Chen, Kai
Zheng, Chunxin
Li, Yulin
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
author_facet Bi, Zhihai
Chen, Kai
Zheng, Chunxin
Li, Yulin
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
contents Interactive navigation is crucial in scenarios where proactively interacting with objects can yield shorter paths, thus significantly improving traversal efficiency. Existing methods primarily focus on using the robot body to relocate large obstacles (which could be comparable to the size of a robot). However, they prove ineffective in narrow or constrained spaces where the robot's dimensions restrict its manipulation capabilities. This paper introduces a novel interactive navigation framework for legged manipulators, featuring an active arm-pushing mechanism that enables the robot to reposition movable obstacles in space-constrained environments. To this end, we develop a reinforcement learning-based arm-pushing controller with a two-stage reward strategy for large-object manipulation. Specifically, this strategy first directs the manipulator to a designated pushing zone to achieve a kinematically feasible contact configuration. Then, the end effector is guided to maintain its position at appropriate contact points for stable object displacement while preventing toppling. The simulations validate the robustness of the arm-pushing controller, showing that the two-stage reward strategy improves policy convergence and long-term performance. Real-world experiments further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed navigation framework, which achieves shorter paths and reduced traversal time. The open-source project can be found at https://github.com/Zhihaibi/Interactive-Navigation-for-legged-manipulator.git.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_01474
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Interactive Navigation for Legged Manipulators with Learned Arm-Pushing Controller
Bi, Zhihai
Chen, Kai
Zheng, Chunxin
Li, Yulin
Li, Haoang
Ma, Jun
Robotics
Interactive navigation is crucial in scenarios where proactively interacting with objects can yield shorter paths, thus significantly improving traversal efficiency. Existing methods primarily focus on using the robot body to relocate large obstacles (which could be comparable to the size of a robot). However, they prove ineffective in narrow or constrained spaces where the robot's dimensions restrict its manipulation capabilities. This paper introduces a novel interactive navigation framework for legged manipulators, featuring an active arm-pushing mechanism that enables the robot to reposition movable obstacles in space-constrained environments. To this end, we develop a reinforcement learning-based arm-pushing controller with a two-stage reward strategy for large-object manipulation. Specifically, this strategy first directs the manipulator to a designated pushing zone to achieve a kinematically feasible contact configuration. Then, the end effector is guided to maintain its position at appropriate contact points for stable object displacement while preventing toppling. The simulations validate the robustness of the arm-pushing controller, showing that the two-stage reward strategy improves policy convergence and long-term performance. Real-world experiments further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed navigation framework, which achieves shorter paths and reduced traversal time. The open-source project can be found at https://github.com/Zhihaibi/Interactive-Navigation-for-legged-manipulator.git.
title Interactive Navigation for Legged Manipulators with Learned Arm-Pushing Controller
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01474