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In this paper, we present a controller that combines motion generation and control in one loop, to endow robots with reactivity and safety. In particular, we propose a control approach that enables to follow the motion plan of a first order…

The paper proposes a reliable and robust planning solution to the long range robotic navigation problem in extremely cluttered environments. A two-layer planning architecture is proposed that leverages both the environment map and the…

Aerial manipulation (AM) promises to move Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) beyond passive inspection to contact-rich tasks such as grasping, assembly, and in-situ maintenance. Most prior AM demonstrations rely on external motion capture…

Compliance is a strong requirement for human-robot interactions. Soft-robots provide an opportunity to cover the lack of compliance in conventional actuation mechanisms, however, the control of them is very challenging given their intrinsic…

Robotic tasks which involve uncertainty--due to variation in goal, environment configuration, or confidence in task model--may require human input to instruct or adapt the robot. In tasks with physical contact, several existing methods for…

Ensuring safety is crucial to promote the application of robot manipulators in open workspaces. Factors such as sensor errors or unpredictable collisions make the environment full of uncertainties. In this work, we investigate these…

Robotic imitation learning has advanced from solving static tasks to addressing dynamic interaction scenarios, but testing and evaluation remain costly and challenging due to the need for real-time interaction with dynamic environments. We…

The long-standing, dominant approach to robotic obstacle negotiation relies on mapping environmental geometry to avoid obstacles. However, this approach does not allow for traversal of cluttered obstacles, hindering applications such as…

In recent years, the focus on developing robot manipulators has shifted towards prioritizing safety in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Impedance control is a typical approach for interaction control in collaboration tasks. However, such a…

This paper investigates one of the most challenging tasks in dynamic manipulation -- catching large-momentum moving objects. Beyond the realm of quasi-static manipulation, dealing with highly dynamic objects can significantly improve the…

This paper presents an aerial platform capable of performing physically interactive tasks in unstructured environments with human-like dexterity under human supervision. This aerial platform consists of a humanoid torso attached to a…

Modern, torque-controlled service robots can regulate contact forces when interacting with their environment. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a powerful method to solve the underlying control problem, allowing to plan for whole-body…

Human-robot cooperation is essential in environments such as warehouses and retail stores, where workers frequently handle deformable objects like paper, bags, and fabrics. Coordinating robotic actions with human assistance remains…

This paper proposes a systematic solution that uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to aggressively and safely track an agile target. The solution properly handles the challenging situations where the intent of the target and the dense…

We address the problem of applying Task and Motion Planning (TAMP) in real world environments. TAMP combines symbolic and geometric reasoning to produce sequential manipulation plans, typically specified as joint-space trajectories, which…

With the goal of enabling the exploitation of impacts in robotic manipulation, a new framework is presented for control of robotic manipulators that are tasked to execute nominally simultaneous impacts. In this framework, we employ tracking…

Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…

Compliant robotics have seen successful applications in energy efficient locomotion and cyclic manipulation. However, exploitation of variable physical impedance for energy efficient sequential movements has not been extensively addressed.…

Safe physical interaction is critical for deploying robotic manipulators in human-robot interaction and contact-rich tasks, where uncertainty, external forces, and actuator limitations can compromise both performance and safety. We propose…

Electric endurance racing is characterized by severe energy constraints and strong aerodynamic interactions. Determining race-winning policies therefore becomes a fundamentally multi-agent, game-theoretic problem. These policies must…