Related papers: Spherical Planetary Robot for Rugged Terrain Trave…
This paper presents the design, instrumentation, and experimental procedures used to test the Spherical Sailing Omnidirectional Rover (SSailOR) in a controlled wind tunnel environment. The SSailOR is a wind-powered autonomous rover. This…
Solving mobile manipulation tasks in inaccessible and dangerous environments is an important application of robots to support humans. Example domains are construction and maintenance of manned and unmanned stations on the moon and other…
Realizing a soft manipulator with biologically comparable flexibility and versatility often requires careful selection of materials and actuation, as well as attentive design of its structure, perception, and control. Here, we report a new…
Semi or completely autonomous unmanned vehicles, remotely driven or controlled through artificial intelligence, are instrumental to foster space exploration. One of the most essential tasks of a rover is terrain traversing which requires…
The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…
We present here SPECULOOS, a new exoplanet transit search based on a network of 1m-class robotic telescopes targeting the $\sim$1200 ultracool (spectral type M7 and later) dwarfs bright enough in the infrared ($K$-mag $\leq 12.5$) to…
The successes of previous and current Mars rovers have encouraged space agencies worldwide to pursue additional planetary exploration missions with more ambitious navigation goals. For example, NASA's planned Mars Sample Return mission will…
Multimodal locomotion is crucial for an animal's adaptability in unstructured wild environments. Similarly, in the human gastrointestinal tract, characterized by viscoelastic mucus, complex rugae, and narrow sphincters like the cardia,…
In recent years, robotic exploration has become increasingly important in planetary exploration. One area of particular interest for exploration is Martian lava tubes, which have several distinct features of interest. First, it is theorized…
Soft robots have drawn significant attention recently for their ability to achieve rich shapes when interacting with complex environments. However, their elasticity and flexibility compared to rigid robots also pose significant challenges…
Since the past few decades, several designs and control methods have been developed for the Spherical Robots (SRs) with thoroughly analyzed mechanics on generalized 3D terrains. But the vertical motion and the steep inclination maneuver has…
This paper presents SCALER, a versatile free-climbing multi-limbed robot that is designed to achieve tightly coupled simultaneous locomotion and dexterous grasping. While existing quadrupedal-limbed robots have demonstrated impressive…
Climbing robots hold significant promise for applications such as industrial inspection and maintenance, particularly in hazardous or hard-to-reach environments. This paper describes the quadrupedal climbing robot Magnecko, developed with…
We present a method for image-guided exploration for mobile robotic systems. Our approach extends ergodic exploration methods, a recent exploration approach that prioritizes complete coverage of a space, with the use of a learned image…
Humanoid robotics research depends on capable robot platforms, but recently developed advanced platforms are often not available to other research groups, expensive, dangerous to operate, or closed-source. The lack of available platforms…
Conventional mobile tensegrity robots constructed with straight links offer mobility at the cost of locomotion speed. While spherical robots provide highly effective rolling behavior, they often lack the stability required for navigating…
So far, planetary surface exploration depends on various mobile robot platforms. The autonomous navigation and decision-making of these mobile robots in complex terrains largely rely on their terrain-aware perception, localization and…
Wheeled rovers have been the primary choice for lunar exploration due to their speed and efficiency. However, deeper areas, such as lunar caves and craters, require the mobility of legged robots. To do so, appropriate end effectors must be…
Flippers are essential components of tracked robot locomotion systems for unstructured terrain, especially within a rescue scenario. Achieving full and semi-autonomy for such rescue robots is the goal of many research efforts. In this work,…
This work contributes a marsupial robotic system-of-systems involving a legged and an aerial robot capable of collaborative mapping and exploration path planning that exploits the heterogeneous properties of the two systems and the ability…