Related papers: The sensorimotor loop as a dynamical system: How r…
This paper aims to study a specific kind of parallel robot: Spherical Parallel Manipulators (SPM) that are capable of unlimited rolling. A focus is made on the kinematics of such mechanisms, especially taking into account uncertainties…
The linearization of the equations of motion of a robotics system about a given state-input trajectory, including a controlled equilibrium state, is a valuable tool for model-based planning, closed-loop control, gain tuning, and state…
Models of a playground swing have been studied since the 1960s. However, in most of them, the position of the swinger is controlled directly. This simplifies the problem but hides the mechanics of torques applied to keep the swing moving in…
The Drosophila larva, a soft-body animal, can bend its body and roll efficiently to escape danger. However, contrary to common belief, this rolling motion is not driven by the imbalance of gravity and ground reaction forces. Through…
A robotic system can be viewed as a collection of lower-dimensional systems that are coupled via reaction forces (Lagrange multipliers) enforcing holonomic constraints. Inspired by this viewpoint, this paper presents a novel formulation for…
In search of a simple baseline for Deep Reinforcement Learning in locomotion tasks, we propose a model-free open-loop strategy. By leveraging prior knowledge and the elegance of simple oscillators to generate periodic joint motions, it…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
This work aims to learn how to perform complex robot manipulation tasks that are composed of several, consecutively executed low-level sub-tasks, given as input a few visual demonstrations of the tasks performed by a person. The sub-tasks…
We investigate a self-organized swimmer at low Reynolds numbers. The microscopic swimmer is composed of three spheres that are connected by two identical active linker arms. Each linker arm contains molecular motors and elastic elements and…
We study a simple model of swarmalators subject to periodic forcing and confined to move around a one-dimensional ring. This is a toy model for physical systems with a mix of sync, swarming, and forcing such as colloidal micromotors. We…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
Motor proteins are active enzymatic molecules that drive a variety of biological processes, including transfer of genetic information, cellular transport, cell motility and muscles contraction. It is known that these biological molecular…
We propose a modular architecture for neuromorphic closed-loop control based on bistable relaxation oscillator modules consisting of three spiking neurons each. Like its biological prototypes, this basic component is robust to parameter…
Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…
Swarming behavior, where coherent motion emerges from the interactions of many mobile agents, is ubiquitous in physics and biology. Moreover, there are many efforts to replicate swarming dynamics in mobile robotic systems which take…
Traditionally, robots are regarded as universal motion generation machines. They are designed mainly by kinematics considerations while the desired dynamics is imposed by strong actuators and high-rate control loops. As an alternative, one…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
We study the dynamics of discrete-time regulatory networks on random digraphs. For this we define ensembles of deterministic orbits of random regulatory networks, and introduce some statistical indicators related to the long-term dynamics…
Living organisms are molecular systems with self-sustained dynamics via energy conversion through molecular cooperation, resulting in highly complex macroscopic behaviors. Construction of such autonomous macroscopic dynamics at a molecular…
Distributed networks of brain areas interact with one another in a time-varying fashion to enable complex cognitive and sensorimotor functions. Here we use novel network analysis algorithms to test the recruitment and integration of…