Related papers: Fast Reconfiguration for Programmable Matter
Real-time motion planning is a vital function of robotic systems. Different from existing roadmap algorithms which first determine the free space and then determine the collision-free path, researchers recently proposed several convex…
Many standard structural quantities, such as order parameters and correlation functions, exist for common condensed matter systems, such as spherical and rod-like particles. However, these structural quantities are often insufficient for…
In the modular robot reconfiguration problem, we are given $n$ cube-shaped modules (or robots) as well as two configurations, i.e., placements of the $n$ modules so that their union is face-connected. The goal is to find a sequence of moves…
We consider the problem of reconfiguring a set of physical objects into a desired target configuration, a typical (sub)task in robotics and automation, arising in product assembly, packaging, stocking store shelves, and more. In this paper…
In systems of active programmable matter, individual modules require a constant supply of energy to participate in the system's collective behavior. These systems are often powered by an external energy source accessible by at least one…
When planning motions in a configuration space that has underlying symmetries (e.g. when manipulating one or multiple symmetric objects), the ideal planning algorithm should take advantage of those symmetries to produce shorter…
Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) is an effective methodology to unleash the potential of large foundation models in novel scenarios with limited training data. In the computer vision community, PEFT has shown effectiveness in image…
Data-driven machine learning methods have the potential to dramatically accelerate the rate of materials design over conventional human-guided approaches. These methods would help identify or, in the case of generative models, even create…
Modern cyber-physical systems (e.g., robotics systems) are typically composed of physical and software components, the characteristics of which are likely to change over time. Assumptions about parts of the system made at design time may…
Algorithms typically come with tunable parameters that have a considerable impact on the computational resources they consume. Too often, practitioners must hand-tune the parameters, a tedious and error-prone task. A recent line of research…
Character animation in real-world scenarios necessitates a variety of constraints, such as trajectories, key-frames, interactions, etc. Existing methodologies typically treat single or a finite set of these constraint(s) as separate control…
The design of distributed gathering and convergence algorithms for tiny robots has recently received much attention. In particular, it has been shown that convergence problems can even be solved for very weak, \emph{oblivious} robots:…
This paper studies a class of multi-robot coordination problems where a team of robots aim to reach their goal regions with minimum time and avoid collisions with obstacles and other robots. A novel numerical algorithm is proposed to…
We present a framework for deformable object manipulation that interleaves planning and control, enabling complex manipulation tasks without relying on high-fidelity modeling or simulation. The key question we address is when should we use…
We present the first universal reconfiguration algorithm for transforming a modular robot between any two facet-connected square-grid configurations using pivot moves. More precisely, we show that five extra "helper" modules ("musketeers")…
We investigate motion planning algorithms for the assembly of shapes in the \emph{tilt model} in which unit-square tiles move in a grid world under the influence of uniform external forces and self-assemble according to certain rules. We…
We are interested in pick-and-place style robot manipulation tasks in cluttered and confined 3D workspaces among movable objects that may be rearranged by the robot and may slide, tilt, lean or topple. A recently proposed algorithm, M4M,…
A configuration of $n$ unit-cube-shaped \textit{modules} (or \textit{robots}) is a lattice-aligned placement of the $n$ modules so that their union is face-connected. The reconfiguration problem aims at finding a sequence of moves that…
Interactions govern the flow of information and the formation of correlations in quantum systems, dictating the phases of matter found in nature and the forms of entanglement generated in the laboratory. Typical interactions decay with…
We study the power of uncontrolled random molecular movement in the nubot model of self-assembly. The nubot model is an asynchronous nondeterministic cellular automaton augmented with rigid-body movement rules (push/pull, deterministically…