Interactive Shaping of Granular Media Using Reinforcement Learning




Authors:

B. Kreis, M. Mosbach, A. Ripke, M. E. Ullah, S. Behnke, M. Bennewitz

Type:

Conference Proceeding

Published in:

Accepted to: IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)

Year:

2025

Related Projects:

RePAIR - Reconstructing the Past: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Meet Cultural Heritage, Embodied AI at LAMARR Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Links:

Paper WebsiteCode

BibTex String

@inproceedings{kreis25humanoids,
title={Interactive Shaping of Granular Media with Reinforcement Learning},
author={Benedikt Kreis and Malte Mosbach and Anny Ripke and Muhammad Ehsan Ullah and Sven Behnke and Maren Bennewitz},
booktitle={Proc. of the IEEE-RAS Int. Conf. on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)},
year={2025}
}
Topic

Abstract:

Autonomous manipulation of granular media, such as sand, is crucial for applications in construction, excavation, and additive manufacturing.However, shaping granular materials presents unique challenges due to their high-dimensional configuration space and complex dynamics, where traditional rule-based approaches struggle without extensive engineering efforts.Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a promising alternative by enabling agents to learn adaptive manipulation strategies through trial and error.In this work, we present an RL framework that enables a robotic arm with a cubic end-effector and a stereo camera to shape granular media into desired target structures.We show the importance of compact observations and concise reward formulations for the large configuration space, validating our design choices with an ablation study.Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for the training of visual policies that manipulate granular media including their real-world deployment, outperforming two baseline approaches.