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One of the main challenges in the vision-based grasping is the selection of feasible grasp regions while interacting with novel objects. Recent approaches exploit the power of the convolutional neural network (CNN) to achieve accurate grasping at the cost of high computational power and time. In this paper, we present a novel unsupervised learning based algorithm for the selection of feasible grasp regions. Unsupervised learning infers the pattern in data-set without any external labels. We apply k-means clustering on the image plane to identify the grasp regions, followed by an axis assignment method. We define a novel concept of Grasp Decide Index (GDI) to select the best grasp pose in image plane. We have conducted several experiments in clutter or isolated environment on standard objects of Amazon Robotics Challenge 2017 and Amazon Picking Challenge 2016. We compare the results with prior learning based approaches to validate the robustness and adaptive nature of our algorithm for a variety of novel objects in different domains.

Legged locomotion is commonly studied and expressed as a discrete set of gait patterns, like walk, trot, gallop, which are usually treated as given and pre-programmed in legged robots for efficient locomotion at different speeds. However, fixing a set of pre-programmed gaits limits the generality of locomotion. Recent animal motor studies show that these conventional gaits are only prevalent in ideal flat terrain conditions while real-world locomotion is unstructured and more like bouts of intermittent steps. What principles could lead to both structured and unstructured patterns across mammals and how to synthesize them in robots? In this work, we take an analysis-by-synthesis approach and learn to move by minimizing mechanical energy. We demonstrate that learning to minimize energy consumption plays a key role in the emergence of natural locomotion gaits at different speeds in real quadruped robots. The emergent gaits are structured in ideal terrains and look similar to that of horses and sheep. The same approach leads to unstructured gaits in rough terrains which is consistent with the findings in animal motor control. We validate our hypothesis in both simulation and real hardware across natural terrains. Videos at https://energy-locomotion.github.io.