Pick-and-Place Demo – Robot Stuck During Place / Hand-Over Task

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1

Hello everyone,

I’ve been running multiple pick-and-place demonstrations with Stretch (ball pickup and hand-over to a person). Most of the time the robot successfully detects and grasps the object, but I’m experiencing an issue during the place / hand-over stage.

In several trials:

  • The robot successfully picks up the ball.

  • When transitioning to the place or hand-over task, it becomes extremely slow.

  • In one case, I waited around 15 minutes, but there was no change in the robot’s status.

  • The task did not complete, and the robot appeared stuck in the execution phase.

There were no visible crashes or explicit error messages in the terminal. The system simply remained in the same state without progressing.

Any guidance on how to debug this or what logs to inspect would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

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2

Hi @Mallak_Alqaisi,

From what you’re describing, it sounds like the issue is happening right at the transition between detection and navigation during the hand-over step. The robot seems to end up in a state where it is trying to plan a motion, but the planner cannot find a valid path, so it appears to “hang” without a clear crash.

A couple of things to check and try:

  • Have the person stand a bit farther away. If the person is standing too close to the robot, the system may consider the robot already “within reach,” while at the same time marking the current position as invalid for navigation.

  • Make sure there’s clear space around the robot (not too close to obstacles).

  • If the issue persists, it would help a lot to have a short video or photo showing the robot and person positions when it gets stuck. That will help us pinpoint the issue.

Also, if you’re able to, feel free to open an issue on GitHub and include those logs, that can help us track and debug this more closely.

Best,
Jason

3

Hi @Mallak_Alqaisi,

Just following up to see whether you were able to test the suggestions from my previous message, and whether you noticed any change in the robot behavior during the hand-over step.

Best,
Jason