Related papers: A Dexterous Tip-extending Robot with Variable-leng…
Dynamic motions are a key feature of robotic arms, enabling them to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Soft continuum manipulators do not currently consider dynamic parameters when operating in task space. This shortcoming makes…
Wire-harnessing tasks pose great challenges to be automated by the robot due to the complex dynamics and unpredictable behavior of the deformable wire. Traditional methods, often reliant on dual-robot arms or tactile sensing, face…
Robotic pruning of dormant grapevines is an area of active research in order to promote vine balance and grape quality, but so far robotic efforts have largely focused on planar, simplified vines not representative of commercial vineyards.…
This paper proposes a unified vision-based manipulation framework using image contours of deformable/rigid objects. Instead of using human-defined cues, the robot automatically learns the features from processed vision data. Our method…
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…
This research considers the task of evolving the physical structure of a robot to enhance its performance in various environments, which is a significant problem in the field of Evolutionary Robotics. Inspired by the fields of evolutionary…
In this paper, we discuss a novel continuum robot design that enables the online tuning of the magnetic response at its tip. The proposed method allows for the change of both effective magnetic direction and intensity, introducing steering…
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…
The ability of robotic grippers to not only grasp but also re-position and re-orient objects in-hand is crucial for achieving versatile, general-purpose manipulation. While recent advances in soft robotic grasping has greatly improved grasp…
Internal computational models of physical bodies are fundamental to the ability of robots and animals alike to plan and control their actions. These "self-models" allow robots to consider outcomes of multiple possible future actions,…
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…
Controlling the shape of deformable linear objects using robots and constraints provided by environmental fixtures has diverse industrial applications. In order to establish robust contacts with these fixtures, accurate estimation of the…
Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…
Existing shape estimation methods for deformable object manipulation suffer from the drawbacks of being off-line, model dependent, noise-sensitive or occlusion-sensitive, and thus are not appropriate for manipulation tasks requiring high…
In-pipe inspection robots must traverse confined pipeline networks with elbows and three-dimensional fittings, requiring both reliable axial traction and rapid rolling reorientation for posture correction. In compact V-shaped platforms,…
The effectiveness of scaling up training data in robotic manipulation is still limited. A primary challenge in manipulation is the tasks are diverse, and the trained policy would be confused if the task targets are not specified clearly.…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting on precisely-targeted cells in biological tissues. Some tasks may benefit from robots that change shape, such as elongating to improve chemical gradient…
We introduce shape-changing swarm robots. A swarm of self-transformable robots can both individually and collectively change their configuration to display information, actuate objects, act as tangible controllers, visualize data, and…
Shape-morphing robots have shown benefits in industrial grasping. We propose form-flexible grippers for adaptive grasping. The design is based on the hybrid jamming and suction mechanism, which deforms to handle objects that vary…
Dexterous manipulation is limited by both control and design, without consensus as to what makes manipulators best for performing dexterous tasks. This raises a fundamental challenge: how should we design and control robot manipulators that…