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Generalizable manipulation requires that robots be able to interact with novel objects and environment. This requirement makes manipulation extremely challenging as a robot has to reason about complex frictional interaction with uncertainty…
In this paper, we address two main topics. First, we study the problem of minimizing the sum of a smooth function and the composition of a weakly convex function with a linear operator on a closed vector subspace. For this problem, we…
The breakthrough ideas in the modern proximal splitting methodologies allow us to express the set of all minimizers of a superposition of multiple nonsmooth convex functions as the fixed point set of computable nonexpansive operators. In…
Acoustic levitation provides a unique method for manipulating small particles as it completely evades effects from gravity, container walls, or physical handling. These advantages make it a tantalizing platform for studying complex…
This paper proposes a unified approach for dynamic modeling and simulations of general tensegrity structures with rigid bars and rigid bodies of arbitrary shapes. The natural coordinates are adopted as a non-minimal description in terms of…
In this work a finite element simulation of the motion of a rigid body in a fluid, with free surface, is described. A completely general referential description (of which both Lagrangian and Eulerian descriptions are special cases) of an…
For many applications, it is important to catch collections of autonomously navigating microbes and man-made microswimmers in a controlled way. Here we propose an efficient trap to collectively capture self-propelled colloidal rods. By…
Articulated objects (e.g., doors and drawers) exist everywhere in our life. Different from rigid objects, articulated objects have higher degrees of freedom and are rich in geometries, semantics, and part functions. Modeling different kinds…
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…
This document introduces a strategy to solve linear optimization problems. The strategy is based on the bounding condition each constraint produces on each one of the problem's dimension. The solution of a linear optimization problem is…
We consider linear arrays of cells of volume $V_\mathrm{c}$ populated by monodisperse rods of size $\sigma V_\mathrm{c}$, $\sigma=1,2,\ldots$, subject to hardcore exclusion interaction. Each rod experiences a position-dependent external…
In this paper, we explore whether a robot can learn to hang arbitrary objects onto a diverse set of supporting items such as racks or hooks. Endowing robots with such an ability has applications in many domains such as domestic services,…
An optimization method for the design of multi-lattice structures satisfying local buckling constraints is proposed in this paper. First, the concept of free material optimization is introduced to find an optimal elastic tensor distribution…
We consider an ideal gas of infinitely rigid rods near a perfectly repulsive wall, and show that the interfacial tension of a surface with rods on one side is lower when the surface bends towards the rods. Surprisingly we find that rods on…
In this effort, we propose a convex optimization approach based on weighted $\ell_1$-regularization for reconstructing objects of interest, such as signals or images, that are sparse or compressible in a wavelet basis. We recover the…
In information visualization, the position of symbols often encodes associated data values. When visualizing data elements with both a numerical and a categorical dimension, positioning in the categorical axis admits some flexibility. This…
We present a systematic approach for constructing bar frameworks that are rigid but not first-order rigid, using constrained optimization. We show that prestress stable (but not first-order rigid) frameworks arise as the solution to a…
We extend recent computer-assisted design and analysis techniques for first-order optimization over structured functions--known as performance estimation--to apply to structured sets. We prove "interpolation theorems" for smooth and…
Sim-to-real transfer remains a significant challenge in soft robotics due to the unpredictability introduced by common manufacturing processes such as 3D printing and molding. These processes often result in deviations from simulated…
We present a technique to optimize the reflectivity of a surface while preserving its overall shape. The naive optimization of the mesh vertices using the gradients of reflectivity simulations results in undesirable distortion. In contrast,…