Related papers: Controlling Robot Morphology from Incomplete Measu…
In hazardous and remote environments, robotic systems perform critical tasks demanding improved safety and efficiency. Among these, quadruped robots with manipulator arms offer mobility and versatility for complex operations. However,…
Autonomous robots often encounter challenging situations where their control policies fail and an expert human operator must briefly intervene, e.g., through teleoperation. In settings where multiple robots act in separate environments, a…
While the search for new solvents in the chemical industry is of uttermost importance with respect to environmental considerations, this domain remains strongly tied to highly manual and visual inspection tasks by human experts. As the…
Visual topological navigation has been revitalized recently thanks to the advancement of deep learning that substantially improves robot perception. However, the scalability and reliability issue remain challenging due to the complexity and…
Collapsing terrains, often present in search and rescue missions or planetary exploration, pose significant challenges for quadruped robots. This paper introduces a robust locomotion framework for safe navigation over unstable surfaces by…
As mobile robots become useful performing everyday tasks in complex real-world environments, they must be able to traverse a range of difficult terrain types such as stairs, stepping stones, gaps, jumps and narrow passages. This work…
While both navigation and manipulation are challenging topics in isolation, many tasks require the ability to both navigate and manipulate in concert. To this end, we propose a mobile manipulation system that leverages novel navigation and…
We consider the problem of developing robots that navigate like pedestrians on sidewalks through city centers for performing various tasks including delivery and surveillance. One particular challenge for such robots is crossing streets…
This paper presents a topology-inspired morphological descriptor for soft continuum robots by combining a pseudo-rigid-body (PRB) model with Morse theory to achieve a quantitative characterization of robot morphologies. By counting critical…
In this paper we present an overview of the methods and systems that give rise to a flying robotic system capable of autonomous inspection, surveying, comprehensive multi-modal mapping and inventory tracking of construction sites with high…
While a number of excellent review articles on military robots have appeared in existing literature, this paper focuses on a distinct sub-space of related problems: small military robots organized into moderately sized squads, operating in…
Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…
Soft robotics holds tremendous potential for various applications, especially in unstructured environments such as search and rescue operations. However, the lack of autonomy and teleoperability, limited capabilities, absence of gait…
Dexterous manipulation of objects through fine control of physical contacts is essential for many important tasks of daily living. A fundamental ability underlying fine contact control is compliant control, \textit{i.e.}, controlling the…
A mobile robot deployed for remote inspection, surveying or rescue missions can fail due to various possibilities and can be hardware or software related. These failure scenarios necessitate manual recovery (self-rescue) of the robot from…
In this work, we present a novel automated procedure for constructing a metric map of an unknown domain with obstacles using uncertain position data collected by a swarm of resource-constrained robots. The robots obtain this data during…
Mobile robots, becoming increasingly autonomous, are capable of operating in diverse and unknown environments. This flexibility allows them to fulfill goals independently and adapting their actions dynamically without rigidly predefined…
Self-driving vehicles are a maturing technology with the potential to reshape mobility by enhancing the safety, accessibility, efficiency, and convenience of automotive transportation. Safety-critical tasks that must be executed by a…
This paper proposes a novel method of coverage path planning for the purpose of scanning an unstructured environment autonomously. The method uses the morphological skeleton of the prior 2D navigation map via SLAM to generate a sequence of…
Contemporary sensorimotor learning approaches typically start with an existing complex agent (e.g., a robotic arm), which they learn to control. In contrast, this paper investigates a modular co-evolution strategy: a collection of primitive…