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Online generation of collision free trajectories is of prime importance for autonomous navigation. Dynamic environments, robot motion and sensing uncertainties adds further challenges to collision avoidance systems. This paper presents an…
Aerial manipulators are increasingly used in contact-based industrial applications, where tasks like drilling and pushing require platforms to exert significant forces in multiple directions. To enhance force generation capabilities,…
Biologically-inspired robots are a very interesting and difficult branch of robotics dues to its very rich dynamical and morphological complexities. Among them, flying animals, such as bats, have been among the most difficult to take…
Flying vertebrates exhibit sophisticated wingbeat kinematics. Their specialized forelimbs allow for the wing morphing motion to couple with the flapping motion during their level flight, Previous flyable bionic platforms have successfully…
In this paper, we propose an efficient, receding horizon, local adaptive low-level planner as the middle layer between our original planner and controller. Our method is named as corridor-based model predictive contouring control (CMPCC)…
The paper focuses on collision-inclusive motion planning for impact-resilient mobile robots. We propose a new deformation recovery and replanning strategy to handle collisions that may occur at run-time. Contrary to collision avoidance…
The problem of navigating a formation of interconnected tethered drones, named STEM (System of TEthered Multicopters), in an unknown environment is considered. The tethers feed electrical power from a ground station to the drones and also…
Drone detection in visually complex environments remains challenging due to background clutter, small object scale, and camouflage effects. While generic object detectors like YOLO exhibit strong performance in low-texture scenes, their…
This paper discusses the conceptual design and proof-of-concept flight demonstration of a novel variable pitch quadrotor biplane Unmanned Aerial Vehicle concept for payload delivery. The proposed design combines vertical takeoff and landing…
Humanoid robots are machines built with an anthropomorphic shape. Despite decades of research into the subject, it is still challenging to tackle the robot locomotion problem from an algorithmic point of view. For example, these machines…
Biological evidence shows that animals are capable of evading eminent collision without using depth information, relying solely on looming stimuli. In robotics, collision avoidance among uncooperative vehicles requires measurement of…
Designing aerial robots for specialized tasks, from perching to payload delivery, requires tailoring their aerodynamic shape to specific mission requirements. For tasks involving wide flight envelopes, the usual sequential process of first…
Lighter-than-air vehicles or blimps, are an evolving platform in robotics with several beneficial properties such as energy efficiency, collision resistance, and ability to work in close proximity to human users. While existing blimp…
In this paper we present a maneuver regulation scheme for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) micro aerial vehicles (MAV). Differently from standard trajectory tracking, maneuver regulation has an intrinsic robustness due to the fact that…
In this work, the novel, open-source humanoid robot, PANDORA, is presented where a majority of the structural elements are manufactured using 3D-printed compliant materials. As opposed to contemporary approaches that incorporate the elastic…
Autonomous drones can operate in remote and unstructured environments, enabling various real-world applications. However, the lack of effective vision-based algorithms has been a stumbling block to achieving this goal. Existing systems…
Learning to control robots without requiring engineered models has been a long-term goal, promising diverse and novel applications. Yet, reinforcement learning has only achieved limited impact on real-time robot control due to its high…
Turbulence is omnipresent in the atmosphere and a long-standing scientific conundrum that makes flight complex. This complexity is little understood; surprisingly, when turbulence arises, air vehicles struggle while birds seem to thrive.…
Air ducts are integral to modern buildings but are challenging to access for inspection. Small quadrotor drones offer a potential solution, as they can navigate both horizontal and vertical sections and smoothly fly over debris. However,…
Bi-modal delivery systems are a promising solution to the challenges posed by the increasing demand of e-commerce. Due to the potential benefit drones can have on logistics networks such as delivery systems, some countries have taken steps…