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This paper introduces an innovative methodology for object manipulation on the surface of water through the collaboration of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) connected to the object by tethers. We…
Aerial manipulation combines the versatility and speed of flying platforms with the functional capabilities of mobile manipulation, which presents significant challenges due to the need for precise localization and control. Traditionally,…
Coordinated multi-robot navigation is essential for robots to operate as a team in diverse environments. During navigation, robot teams usually need to maintain specific formations, such as circular formations to protect human teammates at…
This work briefly covers our efforts to stabilize the flight dynamics of Northeastern's tailless bat-inspired micro aerial vehicle, Aerobat. Flapping robots are not new. A plethora of examples is mainly dominated by insect-style design…
Robotic systems that can traverse planetary or lunar surfaces to collect environmental data and perform physical manipulation tasks, such as assembling equipment or conducting mining operations, are envisioned to form the backbone of future…
Electrically-driven soft robots based on piezoelectric actuators may enable compact form factors and maneuverability in complex environments. In most prior work, piezoelectric actuators are used to control a single degree of freedom. In…
Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…
Thanks to the Cassini-Huygens mission, Titan, the pale orange dot of Pioneer and Voyager encounters has been revealed to be a dynamic, hydrologically-shaped, organic-rich ocean world offering unparalleled opportunities to explore prebiotic…
The next frontier in solar system exploration will be missions targeting extreme and rugged environments such as caves, canyons, cliffs and crater rims of the Moon, Mars and icy moons. These environments are time capsules into early…
Designing a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) controller requires solving engineering challenges not found for fixed-bottom turbines. This paper applies several methods from the growing body of FOWT control literature to the 10-MW…
This paper presents the design and integration of 3 Survivor, a rough terrain negotiable teleoperated mobile rescue and service robot. 3 Survivor is an improved version of two previously studied surveillance robots named Sigma 3 and Alpha…
Most birds can navigate seamlessly between aerial and terrestrial environments. Whereas the forelimbs evolved into wings primarily for flight, the hindlimbs serve diverse functions such as walking, hopping, and leaping, and jumping take-off…
Field robotics applications, such as search and rescue, involve robots operating in large, unknown areas. These environments present unique challenges that compound the difficulties faced by a robot operator. The use of multi-robot teams,…
Miniature locomotion robots with the ability to navigate confined environments show great promise for a wide range of tasks, including search and rescue operations. Soft miniature locomotion robots, as a burgeoning field, have attracted…
Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of the Mars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they need to…
An innovative sort of mobility platform that can both drive and fly is the air-ground robot. The need for an agile flight cannot be satisfied by traditional path planning techniques for air-ground robots. Prior studies had mostly focused on…
In flood disaster rescue scenarios, partially submerged buildings prevent aerial robots from accessing lower levels, limiting mission effectiveness. To address this challenge, this paper presents Wukong-Omni, a novel multimode robot capable…
The search for evidence of past life on Mars presents a tremendous challenge that requires the usage of very advanced robotic technologies to overcome it. Current digital microscopic imagers and spectrometers used for astrobiological…
Many robots are not equipped with a manipulator and many objects are not suitable for prehensile manipulation (such as large boxes and cylinders). In these cases, pushing is a simple yet effective non-prehensile skill for robots to interact…
Mobile manipulation tasks are one of the key challenges in the field of search and rescue (SAR) robotics requiring robots with flexible locomotion and manipulation abilities. Since the tasks are mostly unknown in advance, the robot has to…