CMU Robot Puts on Shirts One Sleeve at a Time

“Developing a general system to address the diverse range of everyday clothing and varying motor function capabilities is our overarching objective. The team’s research used reinforcement learning — rewards for accomplishing certain tasks — to achieve their general dressing system. Specifically, the researchers gave the robot a positive reward each time it properly placed a garment further along a person’s arm. The researchers used a simulation to teach the robot how to manipulate clothing and dress people. For most participants, the system was able to fully pull the sleeve of each garment onto their arm.