Tool use is a hallmark of advanced intelligence, exemplified in both animal behavior and
robotic capabilities. This paper investigates the feasibility of imbuing robots with the ability to …

Human tool use prowess distinguishes us from other animals. In many scenarios, a human
is able to recognize objects seen for the first time as potential tools for a task and use them …

Robots assisting us in environments such as factories or homes must learn to make use of
objects as tools to perform tasks, for instance, using a tray to carry objects. We consider the …

Our goal is to enable a robot to learn how to sequence its actions to perform high-level tasks
specified as natural language instructions, given successful demonstrations from a human …

When a robot adapts a learned task for a novel environment, any changes to objects in the
novel environment have an unknown effect on its task execution. For example, replacing an …

Natural language instructions are effective at tasking autonomous robots and for teaching
them new knowledge quickly. Yet, human instructors are not perfect and are likely to make …

Reinforcement learning techniques are widely used when robots have to learn new tasks
but they typically operate on action spaces defined by the joints of the robot. We present a …

As robot deployments become more commonplace, people are likely to take on the role of
supervising robots (ie, correcting their mistakes) rather than directly teaching them. Prior …

Multi-purpose service robots must execute their tasks reliably in different situations, as well
as learn from humans and explain their plans to them. We address these issues by …

Our goal is to enable a robot to learn how to sequence its actions to perform tasks specified
as natural language instructions, given successful demonstrations from a human partner …