Learn to wipe: A case study of structural bootstrapping from sensorimotor experience

In this paper, we address the question of generative knowledge construction from sensorimotor experience, which is acquired by exploration. We show how actions and their effects on objects, together with perceptual representations of the objects, are used to build generative models which then can be used in internal simulation to predict the outcome of actions. Specifically, the paper presents an experiential cycle for learning association between object properties (softness and height) and action parameters for the wiping task and building generative models from sensorimotor experience resulting from wiping experiments. Object and action are linked to the observed effect to generate training data for learning a nonparametric continuous model using Support Vector Regression. In subsequent iterations, this model is grounded and used to make predictions on the expected effects for novel objects which can be used to constrain the parameter exploration. The cycle and skills have been implemented on the humanoid platform ARMAR-IIIb. Experiments with set of wiping objects differing in softness and height demonstrate efficient learning and adaptation behavior of action of wiping.