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Standardization of Cloth Objects and its Relevance in Robotic Manipulation

Irene Garcia-Camacho, Alberta Longhini, Michael Welle, Guillem Alenyà, Danica Kragic, Júlia Borràs

TL;DR

Robotic manipulation of cloth-like deformable objects is hindered by unclear material property characterization and non-standardized benchmarks. The authors propose a non-destructive textile-engineering–inspired framework to quantify physical and mechanical cloth properties and accompany it with radar-chart–based cloth-set benchmarking. They then investigate how stiffness, elasticity, and friction influence five quasi-static manipulation primitives executed by a Franka Panda, revealing stiffness as a dominant factor for shape retention and friction governing surface interactions. The work advances reproducibility and benchmarking in cloth manipulation by providing actionable measurement protocols and property-driven insights for manipulation tasks.

Abstract

The field of robotics faces inherent challenges in manipulating deformable objects, particularly in understanding and standardising fabric properties like elasticity, stiffness, and friction. While the significance of these properties is evident in the realm of cloth manipulation, accurately categorising and comprehending them in real-world applications remains elusive. This study sets out to address two primary objectives: (1) to provide a framework suitable for robotics applications to characterise cloth objects, and (2) to study how these properties influence robotic manipulation tasks. Our preliminary results validate the framework's ability to characterise cloth properties and compare cloth sets, and reveal the influence that different properties have on the outcome of five manipulation primitives. We believe that, in general, results on the manipulation of clothes should be reported along with a better description of the garments used in the evaluation. This paper proposes a set of these measures.

Standardization of Cloth Objects and its Relevance in Robotic Manipulation

TL;DR

Robotic manipulation of cloth-like deformable objects is hindered by unclear material property characterization and non-standardized benchmarks. The authors propose a non-destructive textile-engineering–inspired framework to quantify physical and mechanical cloth properties and accompany it with radar-chart–based cloth-set benchmarking. They then investigate how stiffness, elasticity, and friction influence five quasi-static manipulation primitives executed by a Franka Panda, revealing stiffness as a dominant factor for shape retention and friction governing surface interactions. The work advances reproducibility and benchmarking in cloth manipulation by providing actionable measurement protocols and property-driven insights for manipulation tasks.

Abstract

The field of robotics faces inherent challenges in manipulating deformable objects, particularly in understanding and standardising fabric properties like elasticity, stiffness, and friction. While the significance of these properties is evident in the realm of cloth manipulation, accurately categorising and comprehending them in real-world applications remains elusive. This study sets out to address two primary objectives: (1) to provide a framework suitable for robotics applications to characterise cloth objects, and (2) to study how these properties influence robotic manipulation tasks. Our preliminary results validate the framework's ability to characterise cloth properties and compare cloth sets, and reveal the influence that different properties have on the outcome of five manipulation primitives. We believe that, in general, results on the manipulation of clothes should be reported along with a better description of the garments used in the evaluation. This paper proposes a set of these measures.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 4 equations, 5 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 13 sections, 4 equations, 5 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related work
  3. Cloth manipulation
  4. Textile engineering
  5. Textile characterization
  6. Physical properties
  7. Mechanical properties
  8. Cloth set benchmarking
  9. Relevance of Cloth Properties in Robotic Manipulation
  10. Action Primitives
  11. Evaluation Metrics
  12. Results
  13. Conclusions and Future work

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Representation of literature cloth sets longhini2023edonetirene2022householdgustavsson2022landmark based on the physical and mechanical cloth properties.
  • Figure 2: Reference lines for measuring size and elasticity.
  • Figure 3: (a) Setup to measure stiffness, (b) examples of cloth drapeability and contour and (c) areas used for stiffness formula.
  • Figure 4: Cloth sets evaluated: (a) Elastic Object Set longhini2023edonet, (b) Household Cloth Object Setirene2022household, (c) Dressing Object Set gustavsson2022landmark.
  • Figure 5: Example visualisations of the initial (left) and final states (middle) of each manipulation primitive (Lift, Drag, Fold, Pull, Push) and the mask of segmented cloth in the final state.