Related papers: Docking and Undocking a Modular Underactuated Osci…

Inspired by the octopus and other animals living in water, soft robots should naturally lend themselves to underwater operations, as supported by encouraging validations in deep water scenarios. This work deals with equipping soft arms with…

The ability to modify morphology in response to environmental changes represents a highly advantageous feature in biological organisms, facilitating their adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. While some robots have the capability…

In this paper, we present RhoMorph, a novel deformable planar lattice modular self-reconfigurable robot (MSRR) with a rhombus shaped module. Each module consists of a parallelogram skeleton with a single centrally mounted actuator that…

Our understanding of the oceans remains limited by sparse and infrequent observations, primarily because current methods are constrained by the high cost and logistical effort of underwater monitoring, relying either on sporadic surveys…

Autonomous underwater robots typically require higher cost and time for demonstrations compared to other domains due to the complexity of the environment. Due to the limited capacity and payload flexibility, it is challenging to find…

Active systems contain self-propelled particles and can spontaneously self-organize into patterns making them attractive candidates for the self-assembly of smart soft materials. One key limitation of our present understanding of these…

This paper investigates the trajectory tracking problem of underactuated marine vessels within a polar coordinate framework. By introducing two polar coordinate transformations (PCTs), the original two-input-three-output second-order…

This paper presents a nonlinear control design for highly underactuated balance robots, which possess more numbers of unactuated degree-of-freedom (DOF) than actuated ones. To address the challenge of simultaneously trajectory tracking of…

This paper presents a combined sliding-mode control and subspace stabilization methodology for orbital stabilization of periodic trajectories in underactuated mechanical systems with one degree of underactuation. The approach starts with…

When swimming at low Reynolds numbers, inertial effects are negligible and reciprocal movements cannot induce net motion. Instead, symmetry breaking is necessary to achieve net propulsion. Directed swimming can be supported by magnetic…

A complete model of quadcopter motion for the task of dynamic positioning at a specified point is derived. Based on this model, two control algorithms are proposed. The first one generalizes previously obtained results to the case of a…

This paper proposes a novel robust adaptive model predictive controller for on-orbit dislodging. We study orbit dislodging where a servicing spacecraft uses a robotic arm to free a jammed and unactuated solar panel mounted on a hybrid hinge…

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…

In this work, we present the integrated structure-control design of a 2-DOF underactuated mechanical system, aiming to achieve a periodic motion of the end-effector. The desired behavior is generated via input-output linearization, followed…

We theoretically investigate how one can achieve a preferred rotational direction for the case of a simple electrostatic motor. The motor is composed by a rotor and two electronic reservoirs. Electronic islands on the rotor can exchange…

The field of active matter in general and microswimming in particular has experienced a rapid and ongoing expansion over the last decade. A particular interesting aspect is provided by artificial autonomous microswimmers constructed from…

We develop a hierarchical control architecture for autonomous docking maneuvers of a dynamic positioning vessel and provide formal safety guarantees. At the upper-level, we treat the vessel's desired surge, sway, and yaw velocities as…

This paper presents an approach for autonomous docking of a fully actuated autonomous surface vessel using expert demonstration data. We frame the docking problem as an imitation learning task and employ inverse reinforcement learning (IRL)…

Multirotor aerial robots excel at maneuvering in three-dimensional space, and recent advances enable nimble navigation in cluttered and confined environments, especially for small airframes. By contrast, platforms built for high-altitude…

In this paper, the trajectory planning problem for autonomous rendezvous and docking between a controlled spacecraft and a tumbling target is addressed. The use of a variable planning horizon is proposed in order to construct an appropriate…