Related papers: Reuleaux: Robot Base Placement by Reachability Ana…

A robotic platform for mobile manipulation needs to satisfy two contradicting requirements for many real-world applications: A compact base is required to navigate through cluttered indoor environments, while the support needs to be large…

This work deals with a practical everyday problem: stable object placement on flat surfaces starting from unknown initial poses. Common object-placing approaches require either complete scene specifications or extrinsic sensor measurements,…

For multi-robot teams with heterogeneous capabilities, typical task allocation methods assign tasks to robots based on the suitability of the robots to perform certain tasks as well as the requirements of the task itself. However, in…

We propose a novel formulation of robotic pick and place as a deep reinforcement learning (RL) problem. Whereas most deep RL approaches to robotic manipulation frame the problem in terms of low level states and actions, we propose a more…

To use robots in more unstructured environments, we have to accommodate for more complexities. Robotic systems need more awareness of the environment to adapt to uncertainty and variability. Although cameras have been predominantly used in…

In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) has shown great potential for solving tasks in well-defined environments like games or robotics. This paper aims to solve the robotic reaching task in a simulation run on the Neurorobotics…

In order to make robots more useful in a variety of environments, they need to be highly portable so that they can be transported to wherever they are needed, and highly storable so that they can be stored when not in use. We propose…

Age-related loss of mobility and increased risk of falling remain important obstacles toward facilitating aging-in-place. Many elderly people lack the coordination and strength necessary to perform common movements around their home, such…

Topological localization is a fundamental problem in mobile robotics, since robots must be able to determine their position in order to accomplish tasks. Visual localization and place recognition are challenging due to perceptual ambiguity,…

Robotic systems are more present in our society everyday. In human-robot environments, it is crucial that end-users may correctly understand their robotic team-partners, in order to collaboratively complete a task. To increase action…

This thesis investigates how foundation models can be systematically leveraged to enhance robotic capabilities, enabling more effective localization, interaction, and manipulation in unstructured environments. The work is structured around…

We present a reactive base control method that enables high performance mobile manipulation on-the-move in environments with static and dynamic obstacles. Performing manipulation tasks while the mobile base remains in motion can…

Reliability is a key factor for realizing safety guarantee of full autonomous robot systems. In this paper, we focus on reliability in mobile robot localization. Monte Carlo localization (MCL) is widely used for mobile robot localization.…

A remote collaboration setup allows an expert to instruct a remotely located novice user to help them with a task. Advanced solutions exist in the field of remote guidance and telemanipulation, however, we lack a device that combines these…

Robots are often so complex that one person may not know all the ins and outs of the system. Inheriting software and hardware infrastructure with limited documentation and/or practical robot experience presents a costly challenge for an…

ReachBot, a proposed robotic platform, employs extendable booms as limbs for mobility in challenging environments, such as martian caves. When attached to the environment, ReachBot acts as a parallel robot, with reconfiguration driven by…

We consider the design of a positioning system where a robot determines its position from local observations. This is a well-studied problem of considerable practical importance and mathematical interest. The dominant paradigm derives from…

Accurate localization is an essential technology for the flexible navigation of robots in large-scale environments. Both SLAM-based and map-based localization will increase the computing load due to the increase in map size, which will…

Robot learning provides a number of ways to teach robots simple skills, such as grasping. However, these skills are usually trained in open, clutter-free environments, and therefore would likely cause undesirable collisions in more complex,…

Multi-object transport using multi-robot systems has the potential for diverse practical applications such as delivery services owing to its efficient individual and scalable cooperative transport. However, allocating transportation tasks…