Query-Centric Diffusion Policy for Generalizable Robotic Assembly

1Carnegie Mellon University, Mechanical Engineering *Equal contributions
Framework

The task nature comprises three parts: objects, contact points, and skill library.
An effective assembly policy should identify the correct contact relationship given the assembly context and generate precise action sequences for the robot arm, bridging the gap between intra-part reasoning and inter-part precise control.

Abstract

The robotic assembly task poses a key challenge in building generalist robots due to the intrinsic complexity of part interactions and the sensitivity to noise perturbations in contact-rich settings. The assembly agent is typically designed in a hierarchical manner: high-level multi-part reasoning and low-level precise control.

However, implementing such a hierarchical policy is challenging in practice due to the mismatch between high-level skill queries and low-level execution. To address this, we propose the Query-centric Diffusion Policy (QDP), a hierarchical framework that bridges high-level planning and low-level control by utilizing queries comprising objects, contact points, and skill information. QDP introduces a query-centric mechanism that identifies task-relevant components and uses them to guide low-level policies, leveraging point cloud observations to improve the policy's robustness.

We conduct comprehensive experiments on the FurnitureBench in both simulation and real-world settings, demonstrating improved performance in skill precision and long-horizon success rate. In the challenging insertion and screwing tasks, QDP improves the skill-wise success rate by over 50% compared to baselines without structured queries.

Methodology

Framework

The proposed QDP framework adopts a hierarchical structure consisting of a high-level and a low-level policy.

Video Summary

Simulation and Perturbation

Multiple Assembly Orders Generated by High-Level Policy

8 → 9 → 6 → 7

9 → 8 → 7 → 6

8 → 9 → 7 → 6

9 → 8 → 6 → 7

Sankey Diagram of Low-Level Policy in Simulation

Low-Level Policy

Robustness under Perturbation

Real-world Tabletop Disturbance

Simulation Tableleg Disturbance

Real-world Performance with Masking