Folding Behavior Acquisition of A Shirt Placed on the Chest of a Dual-Arm Robot

Abstract

In this paper, we describe folding behavior acquisition of a shirt by a dual-arm robot. We focus on a way of folding that assumes to place a cloth product on a chest, as people often do. This method has the following advantages: (1) Because it uses the body part, a small workspace is sufficient and a work table is not needed, (2) Since the cloth product is unfolded in a state of suspending and the work is progressed therefrom, the recognition of shape change of the cloth product can be done to a certain extent easily. We divide the folding procedure into three phases, and focus on the operation to fold a sleeve by holding the shoulder part. In our approach, a basic folding motion is acquired by teaching by showing manner, and the action suitable for robots is acquired by reinforcement learning. We show that the folding work can be achieved by an actual dual-arm robot.