Algorithms and Systems for Manipulating Multiple Objects

—Robot manipulation of multiple objects is an im- portant topic for applications including warehouse automation, service robots performing cleaning, and large-scale object sorting. Although problems can range in complexity from a few objects to large disordered piles, autonomy remains a signiﬁcant technical challenge due to the high-dimensional joint conﬁguration space of the robot and all objects, the complex dynamics of object interaction, and the ambiguity and occlusion caused by clutter. This paper surveys a broad range of classical and state-of-the- art research in multi-object manipulation and categorizes them along the dimensions of tasks, perception, predictive models, and decision-making algorithms. It also covers emerging trends and open problems faced in the ongoing effort to realize robust multi- object manipulation systems in practice.