Foldy: Graphical Instruction for Garment-Folding Robot

We present an interactive graphical editing interface for giving instructions to a garment-folding robot. The interface allows a user to teach a robot to fold a garment by performing simple editing operations (clicking and dragging). The interface consists of a simple garment folding simulation mechanism for detecting actions that would be impossible for the robot to perform, and it returns visual feedback to the user. The robot performs an actual garment-folding task by completing the instructions set by the user. We conducted a user study to evaluate our interface by comparing it with two other methods: controlling the robot using a game-pad, and folding a real garment by hand (teaching by demonstration). The results show that our interface provides natural and intuitive instruction comparable to folding by hand.