Related papers: SMORES-EP, a Modular Robot with Parallel Self-asse…
Hybrid locomotion of wheeled-legged robots has recently attracted increasing attention due to their advantages of combining the agility of legged locomotion and the efficiency of wheeled motion. But along with expanded performance, the…
Biological systems often involve the self-assembly of basic components into complex and function- ing structures. Artificial systems that mimic such processes can provide a well-controlled setting to explore the principles involved and also…
Floating-base multi-link robots can change their shape during flight, making them well-suited for applications in confined environments such as autonomous inspection and search and rescue. However, trajectory planning for such systems…
Both biological and artificial self-assembly processes can take place by a range of different schemes, from the successive addition of identical building blocks, to hierarchical sequences of intermediates, all the way to the fully…
Modular Active Cell Robots (MACROs) are a design paradigm for modular robotic hardware that uses only two components, namely actuators and passive compliant joints. Under the MACRO approach, a large number of actuators and joints are…
Multimodal locomotion capability is an emerging topic in robotics field, and various novel mobile robots have been developed to enable the maneuvering in both terrestrial and aerial domains. Among these hybrid robots, several…
This paper presents a planning pipeline framework for locomotion in rope-assisted robots climbing vertical surfaces. The proposed framework is formulated as a bi-level optimization scheme that addresses a mixed-integer problem: selecting…
Swarm robotics has experienced a rapid expansion in recent years, primarily fueled by specialized multi-robot systems developed to achieve dedicated collective actions. These specialized platforms are in general designed with swarming…
Legged robots have the potential to traverse highly constrained environments with agile maneuvers. However, planning such motions requires solving a highly challenging optimization problem with a mixture of continuous and discrete decision…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Which kind of complex behavior may arise from self-organizing principles? We investigate this question for the case of snake-like robots composed of passively coupled segments, with every segment containing two wheels actuated separately by…
Tensegrity structures are lightweight, can undergo large deformations, and have outstanding robustness capabilities. These unique properties inspired roboticists to investigate their use. However, the morphological design, control,…
Safe motion planning algorithms are necessary for deploying autonomous robots in unstructured environments. Motion plans must be safe to ensure that the robot does not harm humans or damage any nearby objects. Generating these motion plans…
We describe a computational model for studying the complexity of self-assembled structures with active molecular components. Our model captures notions of growth and movement ubiquitous in biological systems. The model is inspired by…
This article presents a new three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) parallel mechanism (PM) with two translations and one rotation (2T1R), designed based on the topological design theory of the parallel mechanism using position and orientation…
Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) comprise multiple drone units with reconfigurable connected formations, providing high adaptability to diverse mission scenarios, fault conditions, and payload capacities. However, existing control…
The system architecture controlling a group of robots is generally set before deployment and can be either centralized or decentralized. This dichotomy is highly constraining, because decentralized systems are typically fully self-organized…
We argue that hardware modularity plays a key role in the convergence of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We introduce a new approach for building robots that leads to more adaptable and capable machines. We present the concept of…
Quadruped mammals coordinate spinal bending and axial compression to enhance locomotion agility and efficiency. However, existing robotic spines typically lack the active compliance required to support such dynamic behaviours. We present…
Unlike most human-engineered systems, biological systems are emergent from low-level interactions, allowing much broader diversity and superior adaptation to the complex environments. Inspired by the process of morphogenesis in nature, a…