SAGE: A Generalizable Framework for Articulated Object Manipulation via Bridging Semantic and Actionable Parts

Core Concepts

SAGE is a novel framework that bridges the understanding of semantic and actionable parts of articulated objects to achieve generalizable manipulation under natural language instructions.

Abstract

The paper introduces SAGE, a comprehensive framework for language-guided manipulation of articulated objects. The key insight is to separately model the cross-category commonality in part semantics and part actions, bridging the potential discordance between the two.
The framework consists of the following main components:

Part-aware Scene Perception: A scene description is generated by fusing the outputs of a general-purpose Visual Language Model (VLM) and a domain-specific 3D part perception model. This provides rich context and accurate part-level information.

Instruction Interpretation and Global Planner: The natural language instruction is interpreted by a large language model (GPT-4V) and translated into executable action programs defined on the semantic parts. A global planner tracks the execution progress and adjusts the strategy when necessary.

Part Grounding and Execution: The semantic parts are mapped to Generalizable Actionable Parts (GAParts) using a part grounding module. Executable trajectories are then generated on the GAParts to complete the manipulation.

Interactive Feedback: An interactive perception module leverages observations during execution to refine the part state estimation and update the global planner, improving the overall robustness.

The proposed method is evaluated extensively in simulation environments covering diverse articulated objects and tasks. It also demonstrates strong performance on real-world robot experiments, showcasing its ability to handle complex, language-guided manipulation challenges.

Stats

The paper does not provide specific numerical data or statistics in the main text. The focus is on describing the overall framework and evaluating the system's performance qualitatively.

Quotes

"To exert the functionality of this object, both part semantics and actions should be well understood."
"Our key insight is that large Visual-Language Models (VLMs) possess general knowledge of part semantics, while small domain-specific models present higher accuracy in predicting part actions, which can serve as 'expert facts'."
"Different from prior works that separately assign VLMs and small models to different sub-tasks, we fuse their predictions in both context comprehension and part perception, which achieves a good balance of generality and exactness."

Key Insights Distilled From

SAGE

by Haoran Geng,... at arxiv.org 04-02-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.01307.pdf

Deeper Inquiries

How can the proposed framework be extended to handle more complex articulated objects with multiple interacting parts?

The proposed framework can be extended to handle more complex articulated objects with multiple interacting parts by incorporating a more sophisticated part perception module. This module can be enhanced to detect and segment a larger number of parts within the articulated objects, including intricate and interconnected components. Additionally, the framework can be augmented with a more advanced action generation system that can account for the interactions between multiple parts. By improving the part perception and action generation capabilities, the framework can effectively handle the manipulation of complex articulated objects with multiple interacting parts.

What are the potential limitations of the current approach, and how could it be improved to handle more diverse and challenging manipulation tasks?

One potential limitation of the current approach is the reliance on pre-defined end-effector trajectories for executing actions on the articulated objects. This approach may not always be optimal for handling diverse and challenging manipulation tasks, especially those involving complex interactions between parts. To address this limitation, the framework could be enhanced with a more adaptive and responsive motion planning system. By incorporating reinforcement learning or imitation learning techniques, the framework can learn and adapt its manipulation strategies based on the specific task requirements and environmental conditions. This would enable the system to handle a wider range of diverse and challenging manipulation tasks effectively.

Given the reliance on large language models, how can the framework be made more efficient and scalable for real-world deployment?

To make the framework more efficient and scalable for real-world deployment, several strategies can be implemented. Firstly, model optimization techniques such as quantization and pruning can be applied to reduce the computational complexity of the large language models used in the framework. This would help streamline the inference process and improve the overall efficiency of the system. Additionally, leveraging distributed computing resources and parallel processing can enhance the scalability of the framework, allowing it to handle a larger volume of data and tasks simultaneously. Furthermore, implementing caching mechanisms and optimizing data pipelines can help minimize latency and improve the responsiveness of the system in real-world deployment scenarios. By incorporating these optimizations, the framework can be made more efficient and scalable for practical applications.