Related papers: Control and Trajectory Optimization for Soft Aeria…
In this work, we utilize discrete geometric mechanics to derive a 2nd-order variational integrator so as to simulate rigid body dynamics. The developed integrator is to simulate the motion of a free rigid body and a quad-rotor. We…
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…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), specifically quadrotors, have revolutionized various industries with their maneuverability and versatility, but their safe operation in dynamic environments heavily relies on effective collision avoidance…
Many robotic systems are underactuated, meaning not all degrees of freedom can be directly controlled due to lack of actuators, input constraints, or state-dependent actuation. This property, compounded by modeling uncertainties and…
In this paper, we present an autonomous flight controller for a quadcopter with thrust vectoring capabilities. This UAV falls in the category of multirotors with tilt-motion enabled rotors. Since the vehicle considered is over-actuated in…
As roles for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) continue to diversify, the ability to sense and interact closely with the environment becomes increasingly important. Within this paper we report on the initial flight tests of a novel adaptive…
This paper presents an aerial platform capable of performing physically interactive tasks in unstructured environments with human-like dexterity under human supervision. This aerial platform consists of a humanoid torso attached to a…
Robotic hands with soft surfaces can perform stable grasping, but the high friction of the soft surfaces makes it difficult to release objects, or to perform operations that require sliding. To solve this issue, we previously developed a…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become very popular for many military and civilian applications including in agriculture, construction, mining, environmental monitoring, etc. A desirable feature for UAVs is the ability to navigate and…
While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in several missions, their inability of reliable and consistent autonomous landing poses a major setback for deploying such systems truly autonomously. In this paper we present…
In this paper a geometric approach to the trajectory tracking control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with thrust vectoring capabilities is proposed. The control design is suitable for aerial systems that allow to effectively decouple position…
We propose a novel tri-fingered soft robotic gripper with decoupled stiffness and shape control capability for performing adaptive grasping with minimum system complexity. The proposed soft fingers adaptively conform to object shapes…
Optimal collision-free formation control of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a challenge. The state-of-the-art optimal control approaches often rely on numerical methods sensitive to initial guesses. This paper presents an innovative…
This paper presents a review of the design and application of model predictive control strategies for Micro Aerial Vehicles and specifically multirotor configurations such as quadrotors. The diverse set of works in the domain is organized…
This paper addresses the trajectory tracking control problem for underactuated VTOL UAVs. According to the different actuation mechanisms, the most common UAV platforms can achieve only a partial decoupling of attitude and position tasks.…
Online trajectory optimization and optimal control methods are crucial for enabling sustainable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) services, such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, and transportation, where available actuation and energy…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
Aerial manipulators, which combine robotic arms with multi-rotor drones, face strict constraints on arm weight and mechanical complexity. In this work, we study a lightweight 2-degree-of-freedom (DoF) arm mounted on a quadrotor via a…
Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) have the potential to be employed for surveillance and monitoring tasks. By perching and staring on one or multiple locations aerial robots can save energy while concurrently increasing their overall…
Reaching fast and autonomous flight requires computationally efficient and robust algorithms. To this end, we train Guidance & Control Networks to approximate optimal control policies ranging from energy-optimal to time-optimal flight. We…