LUDO: Low-Latency Understanding of Deformable Objects using Point Cloud Occupancy Functions

Accurately determining the shape of objects and the location of their internal structures within deformable objects is crucial for medical tasks that require precise targeting, such as robotic biopsies. We introduce LUDO, a method for accurate low-latency understanding of deformable objects. LUDO reconstructs objects in their deformed state, including their internal structures, from a single-view point cloud observation in under 30 ms using occupancy networks. LUDO provides uncertainty estimates for its predictions. Additionally, it provides explainability by highlighting key features in its input observations. Both uncertainty and explainability are important for safety-critical applications such as surgical interventions. We demonstrate LUDO's abilities for autonomous targeting of internal regions of interest (ROIs) in deformable objects. %Additionally, LUDO provides uncertainty estimates and explainability for its predictions, both of which are important in safety-critical applications such as surgical interventions. We evaluate LUDO in real-world robotic experiments, achieving a success rate of 98.9% for puncturing various ROIs inside deformable objects. LUDO demonstrates the potential to interact with deformable objects without the need for deformable registration methods.