Related papers: usBot: A Modular Robotic Testbed for Programmable …
Space-filling building blocks of diverse shape permeate nature at all levels of organization, from atoms to honeycombs, and have proven useful in artificial systems, from molecular containers to clay bricks. But, despite the wide variety of…
This paper presents a novel, modular, cable-driven soft robotic arm featuring multi-segment reconfigurability. The proposed architecture enables a stackable system with independent segment control, allowing scalable adaptation to diverse…
We introduce an elastic-driven self-folding approach that fabricates robots directly from flat 3D-printed conductive PLA nets. Elastic bands routed through printed hooks store energy that folds the sheet into programmed 3D geometries, while…
Programmable matter (PM) is a form of matter capable of dynamically altering its physical properties, such as shape or density, through programmable means. From a robotics perspective, PM can be realized as a distributed system consisting…
Rigid bodies, plastic impact, persistent contact, Coulomb friction, and massless limbs are ubiquitous simplifications introduced to reduce the complexity of mechanics models despite the obvious physical inaccuracies that each incurs…
To address the gaps between the static pre-set "thinking-planning-action" of humanoid robots in unfamiliar scenarios and the highly programmed "call tool-return result" due to the lack of autonomous coding capabilities, this work designs a…
Self-assembly refers to the process by which small, simple components mix and combine to form complex structures using only local interactions. Designed as a hybrid between tile assembly models and cellular automata, the Tile Automata (TA)…
Classical rigid-bodied robotic systems are presented with proven success in theoretical development and industrial applications, are recently challenged by the emergence of soft robotics due to a growing need in physical human-robot…
Moving a module in a modular robot is a very complex and error-prone process. Unlike in swarm, in the modular robots we are targeting, the moving module must keep the connection to, at least, one other module. In order to miniaturize each…
Traditional aerial vehicles are constrained to perform specific tasks due to their adhoc designs. Based on modularity, we propose a versatile robot, H-ModQuad, that can adapt to different tasks by increasing its load capacity and actuated…
In this paper, we propose a novel design of a hybrid mobile robot with controllable stiffness and deformable shape. Compared to conventional mobile agents, our system can switch between rigid and compliant phases by solidifying or melting…
The main objective of this study is to propose a methodology to build a parametric linear model of Flexible Multibody Systems for control design. This approach uses a combined Finite Element - State Space Approach based on component modes…
We study robot construction problems where multiple autonomous robots rearrange stacks of prefabricated blocks to build stable structures. These problems are challenging due to ramifications of actions, true concurrency, and requirements of…
When modeling complex robot systems such as branched robots, whose kinematic structures are a tree, current techniques often require modeling the whole structure from scratch, even when partial models for the branches are available. This…
In this paper, we present a model set for designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) experiments. It targets a common scenario in HRC, which is the collaborative assembly of furniture, and it consists of a combination of standard components…
This paper presents a comprehensive framework to enhance Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) in real-world scenarios. It introduces a formalism to model articulated tasks, requiring cooperation between two agents, through a smaller set of…
Multi-robot systems, particularly mobile manipulators, face challenges in control coordination and dynamic stability when working together. To address this issue, this study proposes MobiDock, a modular self-reconfigurable mobile…
This paper presents a system for enabling real-time synthesis of whole-body locomotion and manipulation policies for real-world legged robots. Motivated by recent advancements in robot simulation, we leverage the efficient parallelization…
Testing aerial robots in tasks such as pickup-and-delivery and surveillance significantly benefits from high energy efficiency and scalability of the deployed robotic system. This paper presents MochiSwarm, an open-source testbed of…
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…