Watch, Infer, Coordinate: Inferring Robot Partner Constraints for Zero-Shot Coordination
A benchmark shows robots can infer a partner's physical constraints from joint behavior and coordinate zero-shot.
The paper studies whether a helper robot can infer a partner's unknown physical limits, such as hardware degradation or actuator faults, by watching that partner coordinate with another robot, then apply the inference to a new task. Demonstrations show what the constrained robot did, not what it could have done, and a teammate may compensate, so both robots' actions are treated as informative. The authors introduce Watch, Infer, Coordinate, a benchmark of three physically coupled manipulation settings, and a method that scores candidate constraints from observed joint behavior. Across all three settings the method substantially improves constraint inference and zero-shot coordination, approaching an oracle with the true constraints.
- A helper infers a partner robot's hidden physical constraints from observed teamwork.
- Joint actions of both robots are used because a teammate may compensate.
- Watch, Infer, Coordinate spans three physically coupled manipulation settings.
- The method approaches an oracle that knows the true constraints.
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgRobots operating in the physical world will increasingly need to coordinate with other robots, particularly in manipulation tasks where an object may be too large or heavy for a single robot to carry alone. Physical limitations caused by hardware degradation or actuator faults can restrict the actions a robot can reliably execute, yet these limitations may be unknown to its partner.
By Suyu Ye · arxiv.org
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