Bottom Dressing by a Dual-Arm Robot Using a Clothing State Estimation Based on Dynamic Shape Changes

This paper describes an autonomous robot's method of dressing a subject in clothing. Our target task is to dress a person in the sitting pose. We especially focus on the action whereby a robot automatically pulls a pair of trousers up the subject's legs, an action frequently needed in dressing assistance. To avoid injuring the subject's legs, the robot should be able to recognize the state of the manipulated clothing. Therefore, while handling the clothing, the robot is supplied with both visual and tactile sensory information. A dressing failure is detected by the visual sensing of the behaviour of optical flows extracted from the clothing's movements. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is implemented and validated in a life-sized humanoid robot.