Related papers: A robotic crawler exploiting directional frictiona…
Friction, the resistive force between two surfaces sliding past each other, is at the core of a wide diversity of locomotion schemes. While such schemes are somewhat understood for homogeneous environments, locomotion based on friction in…
Deformable substrates such as sand and mud present significant challenges for terrestrial robots due to complex robot-terrain interactions. Inspired by mudskippers, amphibious animals that naturally adjust their tail morphology and movement…
Promoting exploratory movements through contingent feedback can positively influence motor development in infancy. Our ongoing work gears toward the development of a robot-assisted contingency learning environment through the use of small…
We report in experiment and simulation the spontaneous formation of dynamically bound pairs of shape changing robots undergoing locally repulsive collisions. These physical `gliders' robustly emerge from an ensemble of individually…
The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with…
Real-time constraint satisfaction for robots can be quite challenging due to the high computational complexity that arises when accounting for the system dynamics and environmental interactions, often requiring simplification in modelling…
In this work we propose an extension to the analytical one-dimensional model proposed by E. Gnecco (Phys. Rev. Lett. 84:1172) to describe friction. Our model includes normal forces and the dependence with the angular direction of movement…
Planar sliding of objects is modeled and analyzed. The model can be used for non-prehensile manipulation of objects lying on a surface. We study possible motions generated by frictional contacts, such as those arising between a soft finger…
With the maturation of differentiable physics, its role in various downstream applications: such as model predictive control, robotic design optimization, and neural PDE solvers, has become increasingly important. However, the derivative…
A single mobile service robot may generate hundreds of encounters with pedestrians, yet there is little published data on the factors influencing these incidental human-robot encounters. We report the results of a between-subjects…
This work analyzes fractional continuous-time random walks on two-layer multiplexes. A node-centric dynamics is used, in which it is assumed a Poisson distribution of a walker to become active, while a jump to one of its neighbors depends…
In addition to enabling movement towards environments with favourable living conditions, swimming by microorganisms has also been linked to enhanced mixing and improved nutrient uptake by their populations. Experimental studies have shown…
We present a novel convex formulation that models rigid and deformable bodies coupled through frictional contact. The formulation incorporates a new corotational material model with positive semi-definite Hessian, which allows us to extend…
This paper presents a novel contact-implicit trajectory optimization method using an analytically solvable contact model to enable planning of interactions with hard, soft, and slippery environments. Specifically, we propose a novel contact…
Force-aware grasping is an essential capability for most robots in practical applications. Especially for compliant grippers, such as Fin-Ray grippers, it still remains challenging to build a bidirectional mathematical model that mutually…
This paper extends the forced-oscillation-based reduced-order model of walking to a model with ankles and feet. A human-inspired paradigm was designed for the ankle dynamics, which results in improved gait characteristics compared to the…
Legged robots face significant challenges in moving and navigating on deformable and highly yielding terrain such as mud. We present a resistive force model for legged foot-mud interactions. The model captures rheological behaviors such as…
Adaptive morphogenetic robots adapt their morphology and control policies to meet changing tasks and environmental conditions. Many such systems leverage soft components, which enable shape morphing but also introduce simulation and control…
A vast number of applications for legged robots entail tasks in complex, dynamic environments. But these environments put legged robots at high risk for limb damage. This paper presents an empirical study of fault tolerant dynamic gaits…
Robots are finding new applications where physical interaction with a human is necessary: manufacturing, healthcare, and social tasks. Accordingly, the field of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) has leveraged impedance control…