Object pickup strategies for a robotic device

A system comprising:

• a robotic manipulator;
• a gripper attached to the robotic manipulator;
• and
• a control system configured to:
• identify one or more characteristics of a physical object within a physical environment, wherein the identified one or more characteristics of the physical object comprise a set of geometric characteristics from a particular perspective viewpoint of the physical object;
• make a comparison between the set of geometric characteristics and one or more virtual geometric shapes from the particular perspective viewpoint of the physical object;
• based on an output of the comparison indicating that at least one of the geometric characteristics substantially matches a given virtual geometric shape, generate a virtual object representative of the physical object and associated with the matching virtual geometric shape;
• adjust one or more identified characteristics of the physical object based on characteristics of the virtual object;
• based on the adjusted identified one or more characteristics, determine two or more potential grasp points on the physical object corresponding to points at which the gripper is operable to grip the physical object;
• determine a motion path for the gripper to follow in order to move the physical object to a drop-off location for the physical object;
• select a grasp point from the two or more potential grasp points based on the determined motion path;
• and
• provide instructions to cause the robotic manipulator to grip the physical object at the selected grasp point with the gripper and move the physical object through the determined motion path to the drop-off location.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions, that when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform functions comprising:

• identifying one or more characteristics of a physical object within a physical environment, wherein the identified one or more characteristics of the physical object comprise a set of geometric characteristics from a particular perspective viewpoint of the physical object;
• making a comparison between the set of geometric characteristics and one or more virtual geometric shapes from the particular perspective viewpoint of the physical object;
• based on an output of the comparison indicating that at least one of the geometric characteristics substantially matches a given virtual geometric shape, generating a virtual object representative of the physical object and associated with the matching virtual geometric shape;
• adjusting one or more identified characteristics of the physical object based on characteristics of the virtual object;
• based on the adjusted identified one or more characteristics, determining two or more potential grasp points on the physical object corresponding to points at which a gripper attached to a robotic manipulator is operable to grip the physical object;
• determining a motion path for the gripper to follow in order to move the physical object to a drop-off location for the physical object;
• selecting a grasp point from the two or more potential grasp points based on the determined motion path;
• and
• providing instructions to cause the robotic manipulator to grip the physical object at the selected grasp point with the gripper and move the physical object through the determined motion path to the drop-off location.