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Visual exploration and smart data collection via autonomous vehicles is an attractive topic in various disciplines. Disturbances like wind significantly influence both the power consumption of the flying robots and the performance of the…
Skysails Power GmbH is the leading manufacturer of light and efficient power kites that harness the wind's untapped supplies at high altitudes, aiming at profoundly altering wind energy's impact in achieving the global energy transition.…
Satellite altimetry is a unique way for direct observations of sea surface dynamics. This is however limited to the surface-constrained geostrophic component of sea surface velocities. Ageostrophic dynamics are however expected to be…
We solve the minimum-thrust optimal trajectory generation problem for the transition of a tiltwing Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft using convex optimisation. The method is based on a change of differential operator that allows…
In this paper we provide an optimal control based strategy to explore feasible trajectories of nonlinear systems, that is to find curves that satisfy the dynamics as well as point-wise state-input constraints. The strategy is interesting…
Recently, we showed that optimization problems, both in infinite as well as in finite dimensions, for continuous variables and soft excluded volume constraints, can display entire isostatic phases where local minima of the cost function are…
Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) have emerged as a promising renewable energy technology that exploits stronger, more consistent high-altitude winds via tethered airborne devices. Among the various concepts, crosswind systems, where…
This paper addresses the fast replanning problem in dynamic environments with moving obstacles. Since for randomly moving obstacles the future states are unpredictable, the proposed method, called SMARRT, reacts to obstacle motions and…
Artificial gliders are designed to disperse as they settle through a fluid, requiring precise navigation to reach target locations. We show that a compact glider settling in a viscous fluid can navigate by dynamically adjusting its…
Hummingbirds and insects achieve outstanding flight performance by adapting their flapping motion to the flight requirements. Their wing kinematics can change from smooth flapping to highly dynamic waveforms, generating unsteady aerodynamic…
Jellyfish (Medusozoa) have been deemed the most energy-efficient animals in the world. Their bell morphology and relatively simple nervous systems make them attractive to robotocists. Although, the science community has devoted much…
Understanding the complex patterns in space-time exhibited by active systems has been the subject of much interest in recent times. Complementing this forward problem is the inverse problem of controlling active matter. Here we use optimal…
Birds rely on active high-acceleration morphing and flapping to navigate complex airflows, but they can also maintain stable fixed-wing postures under persistent atmospheric disturbances. Here, we show that avian wings exhibit aerodynamic…
Long arrays of identical, self-propelling flapping flyers are inherently unstable and thus unlikely to exist without active control mechanisms. One approach to enable long in-line formations is to enforce a constant separation between the…
An optimal control problem for longitudinal motions of a thin elastic rod is considered. We suppose that a normal force, which changes piecewise constantly along the rod's length, is applied to the cross-section so that the positions of…
Aerial robots are evolving from avoiding obstacles to exploiting the environmental contact interactions for navigation, exploration and manipulation. A key challenge in such aerial physical interactions lies in handling uncertain contact…
Series elastic robots are best able to follow trajectories which obey the limitations of their actuators, since they cannot instantly change their joint forces. In fact, the performance of series elastic actuators can surpass that of ideal…
We apply a reinforcement learning algorithm to show how smart particles can learn approximately optimal strategies to navigate in complex flows. In this paper we consider microswimmers in a paradigmatic three-dimensional case given by a…
Floating wind turbines (FWTs) hold significant potential for the exploitation of offshore renewable energy resources. Nevertheless, prior to the construction of FWTs, it is imperative to tackle several critical challenges, especially the…
We describe the application of a new technique from nonlinear dynamical systems to infer the Lagrangian connectivity of the deep global ocean. We approximate the dynamic Laplacian using Argo trajectories from January 2011 to January 2017…