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Bananas, Cups and Peelers: Robots Learn How to Handle Curved Objects Like Fruits and Tools

Researchers at EPFL and Idiap unveiled a geometrically aware system that lets robots manipulate irregular objects by mapping surface directions with a stereo camera. The approach creates a 3‑D point cloud and uses diffusion‑based orientation fields to generate local frames, enabling task transfer across shapes without retraining. In experiments the robot peeled, sliced and cleaned objects it had never seen, even with incomplete sensor data. The team plans to automate keypoint labeling and extend the method to deformable items like sponges.