Related papers: A Swarm of Simple Robots Constructing Planar Shape…
The deployment of simple emergent behaviors in swarm robotics has been well-rehearsed in the literature. A recent study has shown how self-aggregation is possible in a multitask approach -- where multiple self-aggregation task instances…
Autonomy for robots interacting with sand will enable a wide range of beneficial behaviors, from earth moving for construction and farming vehicles to navigating rough terrain for Mars rovers. The goal of this work is to shape sand into…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Due to its decentralised, distributed and scalable nature, swarm robotics has great potential for applications ranging from agriculture to environmental monitoring and logistics. Various swarm control methods and algorithms are currently…
Constraining motion to a flat surface is a fundamental requirement for equipment across science and engineering. Modern precision robotic motion systems, such as gantries, rely on the flatness of components, including guide rails and…
We consider the problem of sorting a densely cluttered pile of unknown objects using a robot. This yet unsolved problem is relevant in the robotic waste sorting business. By extending previous active learning approaches to grasping, we show…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
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…
Construction throughout history typically assumes that its blueprints and building blocks are pre-determined. However, recent work suggests that alternative approaches can enable new paradigms for structure formation. Aleatory…
Building structures can allow a robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of areas it can reach. This paper presents a planning algorithm to automatically determine what structures a construction-capable robot must build in order…
The Swarmathon is a swarm robotics programming challenge that engages college students from minority-serving institutions in NASA's Journey to Mars. Teams compete by programming a group of robots to search for, pick up, and drop off…
Recently, the navigation of mobile robots in unknown environments has become a particularly significant research topic. Previous studies have primarily employed real-time environmental mapping using cameras and LiDAR, along with…
This paper proposes a model-based framework to automatically and efficiently design understandable and verifiable behaviors for swarms of robots. The framework is based on the automatic extraction of two distinct models: 1) a neural network…
A cooperative robot swarm is a collective of computationally-limited robots that share a common goal. Each robot can only interact with a small subset of its peers, without knowing how this affects the collective utility. Recent advances in…
Microrobotics has the potential to revolutionize many applications including targeted material delivery, assembly, and surgery. The same properties that promise breakthrough solutions---small size and large populations---present unique…
The paper investigates the problem of path planning techniques for multi-copter uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) cooperation in a formation shape to examine surrounding surfaces. We first describe the problem as a joint objective cost for…
In this work we establish a simple yet effective strategy, based on optimal transport theory, for enabling a group of robots to accomplish complex tasks, such as shape formation and assembly. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach…
Imagine a robot that can assemble a functional product from the individual parts presented in any configuration to the robot. Designing such a robotic system is a complex problem which presents several open challenges. To bypass these…
Pushing is a motion primitive useful to handle objects that are too large, too heavy, or too cluttered to be grasped. It is at the core of much of robotic manipulation, in particular when physical interaction is involved. It seems…
Swarm robotic systems are currently being used to address many real-world problems. One interesting application of swarm robotics is the self-organized formation of structures and shapes. Some of the key challenges in the swarm robotic…