CRAFT: Long-Horizon Cable Routing Algorithm and Low-Friction Caging Gripper
Ziyang Chen, Yash Chitambar, Theodore Lam, Hui Li, Sachin Chitta, Ken Goldberg
AI summary
Problem
Automated cable routing remains difficult due to cable deformability, high friction-induced jamming, and the need for precise tension management across cluttered, multi-fixture environments.
Approach
CRAFT integrates a roller-based low-friction caging gripper with a vision-guided algorithm that plans coordinated unimanual, bimanual, and hand-swapping motions for a dual-arm robot.
Key results
- 84.5% average completion ratio across four routing difficulty tiers
- Successfully routes cables through up to 10 fixtures with 930 degrees of turning
- 54.2% performance improvement over the MOTORCYCLE 1.0 baseline
- Open-source cable routing materials and benchmark dataset released
Why it matters
Provides a reliable, scalable solution for automated cable harnessing in manufacturing, data center wiring, and surgical applications.
Abstract
Cable routing is a common manipulation task in assembly and manufacturing, yet it remains challenging due to the deformable nature of cables and the constraints of cluttered routing environments. In this paper, we present CRAFT: Cable Routing Around Fixtures using Two grippers, a novel hardware plus software architecture that integrates unimanual and bimanual operations for long-horizon cable routing. To address jamming due to friction, we present a novel caging gripper with roller mechanism. Physical exper- iments consisting of 160 trials on a modified NIST board with five types of fixtures and turning angle up to 930 degrees, yield an average completion ratio of 84.5% across four routing difficulty tiers, representing a 54.2% improvement over an earlier baseline. The cable routing materials and benchmarks are available at https://manipulation-net. org/tasks/cable_routing.html.