Planar Pushing

Planar pushing, the act of manipulating objects on a flat surface through contact, is a fundamental problem in robotics focusing on achieving precise object placement and navigation in cluttered environments. Current research emphasizes developing robust control strategies, often employing reinforcement learning, hybrid optimization, or convex optimization techniques to handle the complex dynamics and uncertainties inherent in contact-rich manipulation. These advancements aim to improve the efficiency and reliability of robotic manipulation tasks, with applications ranging from warehouse automation to search and rescue operations. The development of large-scale datasets and modular frameworks like video transformers further enhances the ability to train and evaluate these control algorithms.