Related papers: Characterizing Universal Reconfigurability of Modu…
Self-assembly of modular robotic systems enables the construction of complex robotic configurations to adapt to different tasks. This paper presents a framework for SMORES types of modular robots to efficiently self-assemble into tree…
We study the problem of planning paths for $p$ distinguishable pebbles (robots) residing on the vertices of an $n$-vertex connected graph with $p \le n$. A pebble may move from a vertex to an adjacent one in a time step provided that it…
This paper introduces the Omnidirectional Tractable Three Module Robot for traversing inside complex pipe networks. The robot consists of three omnidirectional modules fixed 120{\deg} apart circumferentially which can rotate about their own…
Different variations of alliances in graphs have been introduced into the graph-theoretic literature about twenty years ago. More broadly speaking, they can be interpreted as groups that collaborate to achieve a common goal, for instance,…
Legged machines are becoming increasingly agile and adaptive but they have so far lacked the morphological diversity of legged animals, which have been rearranged and reshaped to fill millions of niches. Unlike their biological…
This paper introduces the Omnidirectional Tractable Three Module Robot for traversing inside complex pipe networks. The robot consists of three omnidirectional modules fixed 120{\deg} apart circumferentially which can rotate about their…
Robotic dexterous manipulation requires continuously reconciling objectives and constraints defined on heterogeneous geometric spaces: a robot controlled on a $\mathbb{R}^7$ configuration manifold may need to track end effector poses on…
Coordinating the motion of multiple agents in constrained environments is a fundamental challenge in robotics, motion planning, and scheduling. A motivating example involves $n$ robotic arms, each represented as a line segment. The…
A vertex-subset graph problem $Q$ defines which subsets of the vertices of an input graph are feasible solutions. The reconfiguration version of a vertex-subset problem $Q$ asks whether it is possible to transform one feasible solution for…
Through the implementation of reconfigurability to achieve flexibility and adaptation to tasks by morphology changes rather than by increasing the number of joints, malleable robots present advantages over traditional serial robot arms in…
Elongate limbless robots have the potential to locomote through tightly packed spaces for applications such as search-and-rescue and industrial inspections. The capability to effectively and robustly maneuver elongate limbless robots is…
We prove PSPACE-completeness of several reversible, fully deterministic systems. At the core, we develop a framework for such proofs (building on a result of Tsukiji and Hagiwara and a framework for motion planning through gadgets), showing…
We address the problem of planning robot motions in constrained configuration spaces where the constraints change throughout the motion. The problem is formulated as a fixed sequence of intersecting manifolds, which the robot needs to…
We consider the following problem for a fixed graph H: given a graph G and two H-colorings of G, i.e. homomorphisms from G to H, can one be transformed (reconfigured) into the other by changing one color at a time, maintaining an H-coloring…
We show that several reconfiguration problems known to be PSPACE-complete remain so even when limited to graphs of bounded bandwidth. The essential step is noticing the similarity to very limited string rewriting systems, whose ability to…
Motion planning in high-dimensional space is a challenging task. In order to perform dexterous manipulation in an unstructured environment, a robot with many degrees of freedom is usually necessary, which also complicates its motion…
We consider geometric collision-detection problems for modular reconfigurable robots. Assuming the nodes (modules) are connected squares on a grid, we investigate the complexity of deciding whether collisions may occur, or can be avoided,…
Moving a module in a modular robot is a very complex and error-prone process. Unlike in swarm, in the modular robots we are targeting, the moving module must keep the connection to, at least, one other module. In order to miniaturize each…
If robots are ever to achieve autonomous motion comparable to that exhibited by animals, they must acquire the ability to quickly recover motor behaviors when damage, malfunction, or environmental conditions compromise their ability to move…
When considering motion planning for a swarm of $n$ labeled robots, we need to rearrange a given start configuration into a desired target configuration via a sequence of parallel, collision-free robot motions. The objective is to reach the…