SE(3)-Equivariance with Geometric and Topological Guidance for Category-Level Object Pose Estimation

Object pose estimation is a key task for embodied robots, enabling them to interact with objects effectively. Category-level object pose estimation provides a way for robots to estimate the pose of unknown objects. However, estimating object pose from point clouds alone remains challenging. In this paper, we introduce SEGPose, a novel category-level object pose estimation method based on point clouds. Unlike previous methods, SEGPose leverages geometric, topological information, and SE(3)-equivariance, enhancing the network's accuracy in pose prediction. To utilize geometric and topological features, we propose a constraint-based feature extraction and 3D reconstruction method, enabling effective object shape reconstruction. We also design an SE(3)-equivariance feature prediction network to handle pose transformations consistently across viewpoints, improving pose accuracy. Experimental results on benchmark datasets show that SEGPose outperforms all current category-level pose estimation methods based on point clouds. Additionally, we apply the SEGPose to the robotic grasping tasks in real-world scenarios, and the results indicate that SEGPose exhibits excellent generalization capabilities.