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Planning over discontinuous dynamics is needed for robotics tasks like contact-rich manipulation, which presents challenges in the numerical stability and speed of planning methods when either neural network or analytical models are used.…
This paper explores an eclectic range of path-planning methodologies engineered for rolling surfaces. Our focus is on the kinematic intricacies of rolling contact systems, which are investigated through a motion planning lens. Beyond…
This paper presents a general-purpose formulation of a large class of discrete-time planning problems, with hybrid state and control-spaces, as factored transition systems. Factoring allows state transitions to be described as the…
Recent advancements in robotics have transformed industries such as manufacturing, logistics, surgery, and planetary exploration. A key challenge is developing efficient motion planning algorithms that allow robots to navigate complex…
Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…
Contact-rich manipulation involves kinematic constraints on the task motion, typically with discrete transitions between these constraints during the task. Allowing the robot to detect and reason about these contact constraints can support…
A shared grasp is a grasp formed by contacts between the manipulated object and both the robot hand and the environment. By trading off hand contacts for environmental contacts, a shared grasp requires fewer contacts with the hand, and…
Continuum robots are well suited for navigating confined and fragile environments, such as vascular or endoluminal anatomy, where contact with surrounding structures is often unavoidable. While controlled contact can assist motion,…
We present a novel method for global motion planning of robotic systems that interact with the environment through contacts. Our method directly handles the hybrid nature of such tasks using tools from convex optimization. We formulate the…
In this paper, we discuss the mechanics and planning algorithms to slide an object on a horizontal planar surface via frictional patch contact made with its top surface. Here, we propose an asymmetric dual limit surface model to determine…
The discontinuities and multi-modality introduced by contacts make manipulation planning challenging. Many previous works avoid this problem by pre-designing a set of high-level motion primitives like grasping and pushing. However, such…
In this paper, we analyze the effects of contact models on contact-implicit trajectory optimization for manipulation. We consider three different approaches: (1) a contact model that is based on complementarity constraints, (2) a smooth…
This paper uses a mobile manipulator with a collaborative robotic arm to manipulate objects beyond the robot's maximum payload. It proposes a single-shot probabilistic roadmap-based method to plan and optimize manipulation motion with…
In order to achieve autonomous vertical wall climbing, the transition phase from the ground to the wall requires extra consideration inevitably. This paper focuses on the contact sequence planner to transition between flat terrain and…
Manipulation of objects by exploiting their contact with the environment can enhance both the dexterity and payload capability of robotic manipulators. A common way to manipulate heavy objects beyond the payload capability of a robot is to…
Planning for legged-wheeled machines is typically done using trajectory optimization because of many degrees of freedom, thus rendering legged-wheeled planners prone to falling prey to bad local minima. We present a combined sampling and…
Most existing methods for motion planning of mobile robots involve generating collision-free trajectories. However, these methods focusing solely on contact avoidance may limit the robots' locomotion and can not be applied to tasks where…
Non-prehensile planar manipulation, including pushing and press-and-slide, is critical for diverse robotic tasks, but notoriously challenging due to hybrid contact mechanics, under-actuation, and asymmetric friction limits that…
Humanoid robots rely on multi-contact planners to navigate a diverse set of environments, including those that are unstructured and highly constrained. To synthesize stable multi-contact plans within a reasonable time frame, most planners…
Non-prehensile manipulation enables fast interactions with objects by circumventing the need to grasp and ungrasp as well as handling objects that cannot be grasped through force closure. Current approaches to non-prehensile manipulation…