Autonomous Loading of a Washing Machine with a Single-arm Robot

The perception and autonomous manipulation of clothes by robots is an ongoing research topic that is attracting a lot of contributions. We consider the application of handling garments for laundry in this work. A framework for loading a washing machine with clothes placed initially inside a box is presented. Our framework is created in a modular way to account for the sub-problems associated with the full process. We extend our grasping point estimation algorithm by finding multiple grasping points and defining a score to select one. Active contours segmentation is added to the algorithm as well for more robust clustering of the image. Model of the washing machine is used to create a motion plan for the robot to place the clothes inside the drum. A new module is added for detection of items fallen outside the drum so to plan corresponding corrective action. We use ROS, depth and 2D cameras and the Doosan A0509 robot for experiments.