Onboard Sensing and Pushing of Unknown Payload for CoM Estimation with a Holonomic Mobile Robot

This paper presents a novel approach for estimating the center of mass (CoM) direction of unknown payloads using only onboard sensing - namely, a force sensor and an RGB camera - on a mobile robot. Unlike methods requiring external infrastructure, extensive datasets, or machine learning, our technique employs an active perception framework to guide adaptive pushing of the payload and employs a robust search algorithm to find the CoM direction. By eliminating the need for prior inertial knowledge or global pose information, the proposed method converges on a translational line of action (LoA), indicated by zero rotational motion about the CoM. The method is validated on payloads of varying shape, size, and mass distribution, demonstrating consistent CoM estimation accuracy. Overall, this approach offers a reliable and adaptive solution for mobile robotic manipulation in environments where external global sensing is unavailable or impractical.