1. [Publications](/publications)
2. Human Grasp Classification for Reactive Human-to-Robot Handovers
 
 # Human Grasp Classification for Reactive Human-to-Robot Handovers

  ![](/sites/default/files/publications/handovers_2020_v3.gif) 

 Transfer of objects between humans and robots is a critical capability for collaborative robots. Although there has been a recent surge of interest in human-robot handovers, most prior research focus on robot-to-human handovers. Further, work on the equally critical human-to-robot handovers often assumes humans can place the object in the robot's gripper. In this paper, we propose an approach for human-to-robot handovers in which the robot meets the human halfway, by classifying the human's grasp of the object and quickly planning a trajectory accordingly to take the object from the human's hand according to their intent. To do this, we collect a human grasp dataset which covers typical ways of holding objects with various hand shapes and poses, and learn a deep model on this dataset to classify the hand grasps into one of these categories. We present a planning and execution approach that takes the object from the human hand according to the detected grasp and hand position, and replans as necessary when the handover is interrupted. Through a systematic evaluation, we demonstrate that our system results in more fluent handovers versus two baselines. We also present findings from a user study (N = 9) demonstrating the effectiveness and usability of our approach with naive users in different scenarios.



 ## Authors



[Wei Yang](/person/wei-yang)

Chris Paxton (NVIDIA)

Maya Cakmak (NVIDIA, University of Washington)

Dieter Fox (NVIDIA)

 

 

 ## Publication Date



Sunday, October 25, 2020

 

 ## Published in



[International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2020](https://www.iros2020.org/)

 

 ## Research Area



[Robotics](/research-area/robotics)

 

 

 ## External Links



[Short video (1 min)](https://youtu.be/vrwKAmZF9uM)

[Long video (15 min)](https://youtu.be/I7mAoEJHee4)

[Blog](https://news.developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-researchers-use-ai-to-teach-robots-how-to-improve-human-to-robot-interactions/)

[VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/16/nvidia-researchers-use-ai-to-teach-robots-how-to-hand-objects-to-humans/)

[The Robot Report](https://www.therobotreport.com/grasp-classification-system-improves-human-to-robot-handovers/)