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This paper presents an optimisation-based approach for an obstacle avoidance problem within an autonomous vehicle racing context. Our control regime leverages online reachability analysis and sensor data to compute the maximal safe…
In this paper, we investigate a class of submodular problems which in general are very hard. These include minimizing a submodular cost function under combinatorial constraints, which include cuts, matchings, paths, etc., optimizing a…
The task of maneuvering ships in confined environments is a difficult task for a human operator. One major reason is due to the complex and slow dynamics of the ship which need to be accounted for in order to successfully steer the vehicle.…
We consider optimal route planning when the objective function is a general nonlinear and non-monotonic function. Such an objective models user behavior more accurately, for example, when a user is risk-averse, or the utility function needs…
Soft robot manipulators have the potential for deployment in delicate environments to perform complex manipulation tasks. However, existing obstacle detection and avoidance methods do not consider limits on the forces that manipulators may…
This work addresses the problem of kinematic trajectory planning for mobile manipulators with non-holonomic constraints, and holonomic operational-space tracking constraints. We obtain whole-body trajectories and time-varying kinematic…
This paper treats the problem of minimizing a general continuously differentiable function subject to sparsity constraints. We present and analyze several different optimality criteria which are based on the notions of stationarity and…
This paper addresses the spacecraft relative orbit reconfiguration problem of minimizing the delta-v cost of impulsive control actions while achieving a desired state in fixed time. The problem is posed in relative orbit element (ROE)…
This paper deals with the comparison of planar parallel manipulator architectures based on a multi-objective design optimization approach. The manipulator architectures are compared with regard to their mass in motion and their regular…
Boolean programs with multiple recursive threads can be captured as pushdown automata with multiple stacks. This model is Turing complete, and hence, one is often interested in analyzing a restricted class that still captures useful…
A significant challenge in motion planning is to avoid being in or near \emph{singular configurations} (\textit{singularities}), that is, joint configurations that result in the loss of the ability to move in certain directions in task…
Humans can exploit contacts anywhere on their body surface to manipulate large and heavy items, objects normally out of reach or multiple objects at once. However, such manipulation through contacts using the whole surface of the body…
Navigating a collision-free and optimal trajectory for a robot is a challenging task, particularly in environments with moving obstacles such as humans. We formulate this problem as a stochastic optimal control problem. Since solving the…
The use of soft and compliant manipulators in marine environments represents a promising paradigm shift for subsea inspection, with devices better suited to tasks owing to their ability to safely conform to items during contact. However,…
This paper introduces a novel approach to the optimal control of linear discrete-time systems subject to bounded disturbances. Our approach is based on the newly established duality between ellipsoidal approximations of reachable and hardly…
Long-term non-prehensile planar manipulation is a challenging task for robot planning and feedback control. It is characterized by underactuation, hybrid control, and contact uncertainty. One main difficulty is to determine both the…
In many human-in-the-loop robotic applications such as robot-assisted surgery and remote teleoperation, predicting the intended motion of the human operator may be useful for successful implementation of shared control, guidance virtual…
The paper presents a novel technique for the design of optimal calibration experiments for a planar anthropomorphic manipulator with n degrees of freedom. Proposed approach for selection of manipulator configurations allows essentially…
Soft robotic manipulators are attractive for a range of applications such as medical interventions or industrial inspections in confined environments. A myriad of soft robotic manipulators have been proposed in the literature, but their…
Uncertain dynamic obstacles, such as pedestrians or vehicles, pose a major challenge for optimal robot navigation with safety guarantees. Previous work on motion planning has followed two main strategies to provide a safe bound on an…