Related papers: COCrIP: Compliant OmniCrawler In-pipeline Robot
Snake robots offer exceptional mobility across extreme terrain inaccessible to conventional rovers, yet their highly articulated bodies present fundamental challenges for autonomous navigation in environments lacking external tracking…
Exploration of extreme environments, including caves, canyons and cliffs on low-gravity surfaces such as the Moon, Mars and asteroids can provide insight into the geological history of the solar system, origins of water, life and prospect…
This research proposes a novel morphing structure with shells inspired by the movement of pillbugs. Instead of the pillbug body, a loopcoupled mechanism based on slider-crank mechanisms is utilized to achieve the rolling up and spreading…
Autonomous underwater inspection of submerged pipelines is challenging due to confined geometries, turbidity, and the scarcity of reliable localization cues. This paper presents a minimal-sensing strategy that enables a free-swimming…
The robotic manipulation of compliant objects is currently one of the most active problems in robotics due to its potential to automate many important applications. Despite the progress achieved by the robotics community in recent years,…
The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…
Robot performance has advanced considerably both in and out of the factory, however in tightly constrained, unknown environments such as inside a jet engine or the human heart, current robots are less adept. In such cases where a borescope…
This paper introduces a Cosserat rod based mathematical model for modeling a self-controllable variable curvature soft continuum robot. This soft continuum robot has a hollow inner channel and was developed with the ability to perform…
Rehabilitating cast iron pipes through lining offers several advantages, including increased durability, reduced water leaks, and minimal disruption.This approach presents a cost effective and environmentally friendly solution by sealing…
Modular small-scale robots offer the potential for on-demand assembly and disassembly, enabling task-specific adaptation in dynamic and constrained environments. However, existing modular magnetic platforms often depend on workspace…
This paper presents a planning pipeline framework for locomotion in rope-assisted robots climbing vertical surfaces. The proposed framework is formulated as a bi-level optimization scheme that addresses a mixed-integer problem: selecting…
The robot manipulation ecosystem currently faces issues with integrating open-source components and reproducing results. This limits the ability of the community to benchmark and compare the performance of different solutions to one another…
Modular robotics holds immense potential for space exploration, where reliability, repairability, and reusability are critical for cost-effective missions. Coordination between heterogeneous units is paramount for precision tasks -- whether…
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…
Navigation and inspection in confined environments, such as tunnels and pipes, pose significant challenges for existing robots due to limitations in maneuverability and adaptability to varying geometries. Vine robots, which are soft growing…
This paper presents the design, analysis, and performance evaluation of an omnidirectional transformable wheel-leg robot called OmniWheg. We design a novel mechanism consisting of a separable omni-wheel and 4-bar linkages, allowing the…
Motivated by a high demand for automated inspection of civil infrastructure, this work presents a new design and development of a tank-like robot for structural health monitoring. Unlike most existing magnetic wheeled mobile robot designs,…
Although robotic manipulators are used in an ever-growing range of applications, robot manufacturers typically follow a ``one-fits-all'' philosophy, employing identical manipulators in various settings. This often leads to suboptimal…
Modular robots have the potential to revolutionize automation, as one can optimize their composition for any given task. However, finding optimal compositions is non-trivial. In addition, different compositions require different base…
Autonomous robotic systems are increasingly deployed for mapping, monitoring, and inspection in complex and unstructured environments. However, most existing path planning approaches remain domain-specific (i.e., either on air, land, or…