Related papers: Active Area Coverage from Equilibrium

A key problem of robotic environmental sensing and monitoring is that of active sensing: How can a team of robots plan the most informative observation paths to minimize the uncertainty in modeling and predicting an environmental…

Robotic manipulation research has investigated contact-rich problems and strategies that require robots to intentionally collide with their environment, to accomplish tasks that cannot be handled by traditional collision-free solutions. By…

Coverage control has been widely used for constructing mobile sensor network such as for environmental monitoring, and one of the most commonly used methods is the Lloyd algorithm based on Voronoi partitions. However, when this method is…

In this paper, we propose a novel and distributed formation control method for autonomous robots to follow the desired formation while tracking a moving target in dynamic environments. In our approach, the desired formations, which include…

In this work we seek for an approach to integrate safety in the learning process that relies on a partly known state-space model of the system and regards the unknown dynamics as an additive bounded disturbance. We introduce a framework for…

In this work we study the problem of exploring surfaces and building compact 3D representations of the environment surrounding a robot through active perception. We propose an online probabilistic framework that merges visual and tactile…

Learning algorithms have shown considerable prowess in simulation by allowing robots to adapt to uncertain environments and improve their performance. However, such algorithms are rarely used in practice on safety-critical systems, since…

This paper presents a visual-inertial-based control strategy to address the task space control problem of robot manipulators. To this end, an observer-based hybrid controller is employed to control end-effector motion. In addition, a hybrid…

We present a novel approach to quantifying and optimizing stability in robotic systems based on the Lyapunov exponents addressing an open challenge in the field of robot analysis, design, and optimization. Our method leverages…

We present a fully distributed collision avoidance algorithm based on convex optimization for a team of mobile robots. This method addresses the practical case in which agents sense each other via measurements from noisy on-board sensors…

In this paper, we present an observation scheme, with proven Lyapunov stability, for estimating a humanoid's floating base orientation. The idea is to use velocity aided attitude estimation, which requires to know the velocity of the…

This paper presents a framework to enable a team of heterogeneous mobile robots to model and sense a multiscale system. We propose a coupled strategy, where robots of one type collect high-fidelity measurements at a slow time scale and…

In this paper we tackle the problem of persistently covering a complex non-convex environment with a team of robots. We consider scenarios where the coverage quality of the environment deteriorates with time, requiring to constantly revisit…

Active perception approaches select future viewpoints by using some estimate of the information gain. An inaccurate estimate can be detrimental in critical situations, e.g., locating a person in distress. However the true information gained…

Path planning for robotic coverage is the task of determining a collision-free robot trajectory that observes all points of interest in an environment. Robots employed for such tasks are often capable of exercising active control over…

Robotic science missions in remote environments, such as deep ocean and outer space, can involve studying phenomena that cannot directly be observed using on-board sensors but must be deduced by combining measurements of correlated…

In this work, we develop an approach for guiding robots to automatically localize and find the shapes of tumors and other stiff inclusions present in the anatomy. Our approach uses Gaussian processes to model the stiffness distribution and…

Robot-to-human object handover is an essential skill for robot assistants, from serving drinks at home to passing surgical tools in the operating room. We expect robots to perform handover robustly -- to release the object only after a firm…

Many robotic systems require extended deployments in complex, dynamic environments. In such deployments, parts of the environment may change between subsequent robot observations. Most robotic mapping or environment modeling algorithms are…

Agriculture remains a cornerstone of global health and economic sustainability, yet labor-intensive tasks such as harvesting high-value crops continue to face growing workforce shortages. Robotic harvesting systems offer a promising…