Autonomous Realization of Simple Machines

For robots to become integral parts of human daily experience, they need to be able to utilize the objects in their environment to accomplish any range of tasks. In this work, we focus particularly on physically challenging tasks that push the limits on the robot kinodynamic constraints such as joint limits, joint torques and etc. Previously, we demonstrated an autonomous planner that instructs a human collaborator where to place the available objects in the environment to form a simple machine such as a lever-fulcrum assembly. In this work, we report results on the autonomous realization of such a design by the humanoid robot Golem Krang, focusing on the challenges of autonomous perception, manipulation and control.