Data-Efficient Learning from Demonstration for Humanoid Robots via Feature-Level Perception and Prompt-Based Object Detection

Overview & Synopsis

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) allows robots to learn new skills from human examples; however, many vision-based methods require large datasets and resource-intensive end-to-end training. This paper introduces a data-efficient LfD framework for humanoid robots that learns manipulation skills from compact, task-specific features instead of raw images. The proposed approach integrates layered visual preprocessing, Kinect-based human joint estimation, prompt-based object detection, and depth information to extract human motion features and three-dimensional object locations from demonstration videos. These features are used to train a temporal deep learning model that predicts robot joint-angle trajectories for execution. The framework is implemented on a NAO humanoid robot, evaluated quantitatively in simulation, and demonstrated on physical hardware. In simulation, the robot achieves a 78% success rate on a pick-and-place task using only 16 demonstrations, which increases to 86% when trained with 100 demonstrations. The framework also achieves a 71% success rate on a pushing task using eight demonstrations, highlighting its effectiveness for data-efficient humanoid skill acquisition.