We present a novel Learning from Demonstration (LfD) method, Deformable Manipulation Demonstrations (DMfD), to solve deformable manipulation tasks using states or images as inputs, given expert demonstrations. Our method uses demonstrations in three different ways, and balances the trade-off between exploring environment online guidance experts explore high dimensional spaces effectively. test ...

Objective: The aim of this paper is to classify and characterize the existing interaction methods regarding object manipulation in virtual reality environment. Background: Over the past few decades, the field of virtual reality has gone through rapid advances and various virtual object manipulation techniques have been developed. However, an established classification of the existing object man...

Sex differences in immatures predict behavioural differences in adulthood in many mammal species. Because most studies have focused on sex differences in social interactions, little is known about possible sex differences in 'preparation' for adult life with regards to tool use skills. We investigated sex and age differences in object manipulation in immature apes. Chimpanzees use a variety of ...

Object manipulation is a basic task in robotics and automation. Active manipulation by grasp is conventional approach in object manipulation. However, in many cases, grasp-less manipulation can be beneficial in terms of cost, minimalism and extension of workspace. On the other hand passive mechanisms are advantageous from the energy saving viewpoint. In this paper we combine these ideas to deve...