PolyFit: A Peg-In-Hole Assembly Framework for Unseen Polygon Shapes Via Sim-To-Real Adaptation

The study addresses the foundational and chal- lenging task of peg-in-hole assembly in robotics, where misalign- ments caused by sensor inaccuracies and mechanical errors often result in insertion failures or jamming. This research introduces PolyFit, representing a paradigm shift by transition- ing from a reinforcement learning approach to a supervised learning methodology. PolyFit is a Force/Torque (F/T)-based supervised learning framework designed for 5-DoF peg-in-hole assembly. It utilizes F/T data for accurate extrinsic pose estima- tion and adjusts the peg pose to rectify misalignments. Extensive training in a simulated environment involves a dataset encom- passing a diverse range of peg-hole shapes, extrinsic poses, and their corresponding contact F/T readings. The study proposes a sim-to-real adaptation method for real-world application, using a sim-real paired dataset to enable effective generalization to complex and unseen polygon shapes. Real-world evaluations demonstrate substantial success rates of 96.7% and 91.3%, highlighting the robustness and adaptability of the proposed method. Videos of data generation and experiments are avail- able online at https://sites.google.com/view/polyfit-peginhole.