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Human collaboration with robots requires flexible role adaptation, enabling the robot to switch between an active leader and a passive follower. Effective role switching depends on accurately estimating human intentions, which is typically…

Learning-based control has attracted significant attention in recent years, especially for plants that are difficult to model based on first-principles. A key issue in learning-based control is how to make efficient use of data as the…

We present a task-centered formal analysis of the relative power of several robot designs, inspired by the unique properties and constraints of micro-scale robotic systems. Our task of interest is object manipulation because it is a…

In a recent paper we have shown that data collected from linear systems excited by persistently exciting inputs during low-complexity experiments, can be used to design state- and output-feedback controllers, including optimal Linear…

Traditional dynamic models of continuum robots are in general computationally expensive and not suitable for real-time control. Recent approaches using learning-based methods to approximate the dynamic model of continuum robots for control…

This article presents a unified approach to quadratic optimal control for both linear and nonlinear discrete-time systems, with a focus on trajectory tracking. The control strategy is based on minimizing a quadratic cost function that…

Variable impedance control is advantageous for physical human-robot interaction to improve safety, adaptability and many other aspects. This paper presents a gain-scheduled variable stiffness control approach under strict frequency-domain…

In this paper we consider the problem of controlling the dynamic behavior of a multi-robot system while interacting with the environment. In particular, we propose a general methodology that, by means of locally scaling inter-robot coupling…

In this paper, we propose an inverse-kinematics controller for a class of multi-robot systems in the scenario of sampled communication. The goal is to make a group of robots perform trajectory tracking in a coordinated way when the sampling…

Impedance control is a well-established technique to control interaction forces in robotics. However, real implementations of impedance control with an inner loop may suffer from several limitations. Although common practice in designing…

Safe and compliant control of dynamic systems in interaction with the environment, e.g., in shared workspaces, continues to represent a major challenge. Mismatches in the dynamic model of the robots, numerical singularities, and the…

In this work, we use iterative Linear Quadratic Gaussian (iLQG) to plan motions for a mobile robot with range sensors in belief space. We address two limitations that prevent applications of iLQG to the considered robotic system. First,…

Recent studies on transportation networks have shown that real-time route guidance can inadvertently induce congestion or oscillatory traffic patterns. Nevertheless, such technologies also offer a promising opportunity to manage traffic…

Taking inspiration from how the brain coordinates multiple learning systems is an appealing strategy to endow robots with more flexibility. One of the expected advantages would be for robots to autonomously switch to the least costly system…

Soft robots offer more flexibility, compliance, and adaptability than traditional rigid robots. They are also typically lighter and cheaper to manufacture. However, their use in real-world applications is limited due to modeling challenges…

Robotic control systems are increasingly relying on distributed feedback controllers to tackle complex sensing and decision problems such as those found in highly articulated human-centered robots. These demands come at the cost of a…

This paper focusses on the energy-efficient control of a cable-driven robot for tasks that only require precise positioning at few points in their motion, and where that accuracy can be obtained through contacts. This includes the majority…

Robotic systems often operate with uncertainties in their dynamics, for example, unknown inertial properties. Broadly, there are two approaches for controlling uncertain systems: design robust controllers in spite of uncertainty, or…

Learning-based techniques are increasingly effective at controlling complex systems using data-driven models. However, most work done so far has focused on learning individual tasks or control laws. Hence, it is still a largely unaddressed…

This paper explores the possibility of improving bilateral robot manipulation task performance through optimizing the robot morphology and configuration of the system through motion. To optimize the design for different scenarios, we select…