Related papers: RoBoa: Construction and Evaluation of a Steerable …
The request for fast response and safe operation after natural and man-made disasters in urban environments has spurred the development of robotic systems designed to assist in search and rescue operations within complex rubble sites.…
Soft, growing vine robots are well-suited for exploring cluttered, unknown environments, and are theorized to be performant during structural collapse incidents caused by earthquakes, fires, explosions, and material flaws. These vine robots…
A new class of continuum robots has recently been explored, characterized by tip extension, significant length change, and directional control. Here, we call this class of robots "vine robots," due to their similar behavior to plants with…
Robot performance has advanced considerably both in and out of the factory, however in tightly constrained, unknown environments such as inside a jet engine or the human heart, current robots are less adept. In such cases where a borescope…
Navigation and inspection in confined environments, such as tunnels and pipes, pose significant challenges for existing robots due to limitations in maneuverability and adaptability to varying geometries. Vine robots, which are soft growing…
Rehabilitation of aging pipes requires accurate condition assessment and mapping far into the pipe interiors. Soft growing vine robot systems are particularly promising for navigating confined, sinuous paths such as in pipes, but are…
Vine robots extend their tubular bodies by everting material from the tip, enabling navigation in complex environments with a minimalist soft body. Despite their promise for field applications, especially in the urban search and rescue…
Soft, vine-inspired growing robots that move by eversion are highly mobile in confined environments, but, when faced with gaps in the environment, they may collapse under their own weight while navigating a desired path. In this work, we…
Soft growing robots, commonly referred to as vine robots, have demonstrated remarkable ability to interact safely and robustly with unstructured and dynamic environments. It is therefore natural to exploit contact with the environment for…
Soft growing vine robots show great potential for navigation and decontamination tasks in the nuclear industry. This paper introduces a novel hybrid continuum-eversion robot designed to address certain challenges in relation to navigating…
Autonomous navigation is essential for steel bridge inspection robot to monitor and maintain the working condition of steel bridges. Majority of existing robotic solutions requires human support to navigate the robot doing the inspection.…
The fields of soft and bio-inspired robotics promise to imbue synthetic systems with capabilities found in the natural world. However, many of these biological capabilities are yet to be realized. For example, vines in nature direct growth…
Rescue missions in mountain environments are hardly achievable by standard legged robots-because of the high slopes-or by flying robots-because of limited payload capacity. We present a concept for a rope-aided climbing robot which can…
Everting, soft growing vine robots benefit from reduced friction with their environment, which allows them to navigate challenging terrain. Vine robots can use air pouches attached to their sides for lateral steering. However, when all…
There is a dramatic shortage of skilled labor for modern vineyards. The Vinum project is developing a mobile robotic solution to autonomously navigate through vineyards for winter grapevine pruning. This necessitates an autonomous…
Navigating rugged terrain and steep slopes is a challenge for mobile robots. Conventional legged and wheeled systems struggle with these environments due to limited traction and stability. Northeastern University's COBRA (Crater Observing…
Aerial robotic arms aim to enable inspection and environment interaction in otherwise hard-to-reach areas from the air. However, many aerial manipulators feature bulky or heavy robot manipulators mounted to large, high-payload aerial…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
This paper presents the development and integration of a vision-guided loco-manipulation pipeline for Northeastern University's snake robot, COBRA. The system leverages a YOLOv8-based object detection model and depth data from an onboard…
Soft, tip-extending vine robots are well suited for navigating tight, debris-filled environments, making them ideal for urban search and rescue. Sensing the full shape of a vine robot's body is helpful both for localizing information from…