Related papers: Contact-Implicit Trajectory Optimization using Ort…

Real-time constraint satisfaction for robots can be quite challenging due to the high computational complexity that arises when accounting for the system dynamics and environmental interactions, often requiring simplification in modelling…

Force modulation of robotic manipulators has been extensively studied for several decades but is not yet commonly used in safety-critical applications due to a lack of accurate interaction contact modeling and weak performance guarantees -…

Humanoid robots rely on multi-contact planners to navigate a diverse set of environments, including those that are unstructured and highly constrained. To synthesize stable multi-contact plans within a reasonable time frame, most planners…

We focus on human-robot collaborative transport, in which a robot and a user collaboratively move an object to a goal pose. In the absence of explicit communication, this problem is challenging because it demands tight implicit coordination…

Legged robots are able to navigate complex terrains by continuously interacting with the environment through careful selection of contact sequences and timings. However, the combinatorial nature behind contact planning hinders the…

Multi-robot systems have begun to permeate into a variety of different fields, but collision-free navigation in a decentralized manner is still an arduous task. Typically, the navigation of high speed multi-robot systems demands replanning…

In this paper, we explore an approach to actively plan and excite contact modes in differentiable simulators as a means to tighten the sim-to-real gap. We propose an optimal experimental design approach derived from information-theoretic…

Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…

This paper presents a trajectory optimization and control approach for the guidance of an orbital four-arm robot in extravehicular activities. The robot operates near the target spacecraft, enabling its arm's end-effectors to reach the…

Planning contact interactions is one of the core challenges of many robotic tasks. Optimizing contact locations while taking dynamics into account is computationally costly and, in environments that are only partially observable, executing…

Non-prehensile manipulation such as pushing is typically subject to uncertain, non-smooth dynamics. However, modeling the uncertainty of the dynamics typically results in intractable belief dynamics, making data-efficient planning under…

Many robotics tasks, such as path planning or trajectory optimization, are formulated as optimal control problems (OCPs). The key to obtaining high performance lies in the design of the OCP's objective function. In practice, the objective…

Model-based controllers on real robots require accurate knowledge of the system dynamics to perform optimally. For complex dynamics, first-principles modeling is not sufficiently precise, and data-driven approaches can be leveraged to learn…

We propose a data-driven optimization-based pre-compensation method to improve the contour tracking performance of precision motion stages by modifying the reference trajectory and without modifying any built-in low-level controllers. The…

In this work, we present a per-instant pose optimization method that can generate configurations that achieve specified pose or motion objectives as best as possible over a sequence of solutions, while also simultaneously avoiding…

This paper proposes a task-specific trajectory optimization framework for human-robot collaboration, enabling adaptive motion planning based on human interaction dynamics. Unlike conventional approaches that rely on predefined desired…

Optimization-based methods are widely used for computing fast, diverse solutions for complex tasks such as collision-free movement or planning in the presence of contacts. However, most of these methods require enforcing non-penetration…

Robot control through contact is challenging as it requires reasoning over long horizons and discontinuous system dynamics. Highly dynamic tasks such as Air Hockey additionally require agile behavior, making the corresponding optimal…

Recent research on mobile robots has focused on increasing their adaptability to unpredictable and unstructured environments using soft materials and structures. However, the determination of key design parameters and control over these…

Trajectory optimization methods have achieved an exceptional level of performance on real-world robots in recent years. These methods heavily rely on accurate analytical models of the dynamics, yet some aspects of the physical world can…