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Taming Combinatorial Challenges in Clutter Removal

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Robotics Research (ISRR 2019)

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 20))

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Abstract

We examine an important combinatorial challenge in clearing clutter using a mobile robot equipped with a manipulator, seeking to compute an optimal object removal sequence for minimizing the task completion time, assuming that each object is grasped once and then subsequently removed. On the structural side, we establish that such an optimal sequence can be NP-hard to compute, even when no two objects to be removed have any overlap. Then, we construct asymptotically optimal and heuristic algorithms for clutter removal. Employing dynamic programming, our optimal algorithm scales to 40 objects. On the other hand, for random clutter, fast greedy algorithms tend to produce solutions comparable to these generated by the optimal algorithm.

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Acknowledgement

This work is supported by NSF awards IIS-1617744, IIS-1734419, and IIS-1845888. Opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of the sponsor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA

    Wei N. Tang & Jingjin Yu

Authors
  1. Wei N. Tang
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  2. Jingjin Yu
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Correspondence to Jingjin Yu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-WĂĽrttemberg, Germany

    Tamim Asfour

  2. Department of Information Technology and Human Factors, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan

    Eiichi Yoshida

  3. Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jaeheung Park

  4. Jacobs School of Engineering, Institute for Contextual Robotics, San Diego, CA, USA

    Henrik Christensen

  5. Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Oussama Khatib

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Tang, W.N., Yu, J. (2022). Taming Combinatorial Challenges in Clutter Removal. In: Asfour, T., Yoshida, E., Park, J., Christensen, H., Khatib, O. (eds) Robotics Research. ISRR 2019. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95459-8_18

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