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While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in several missions, their inability of reliable and consistent autonomous landing poses a major setback for deploying such systems truly autonomously. In this paper we present…
Being motivated by ceiling inspection applications via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which require close proximity flight to surfaces, a systematic control approach enabling safe and accurate close proximity flight is proposed in this…
This paper proposes a nonlinear control architecture for flexible aircraft simultaneous trajectory tracking and load alleviation. By exploiting the control redundancy, the gust and maneuver loads are alleviated without degrading the…
The paper presents a new, robust control algorithm for position trajectory tracking in a 3D space, dedicated to underactuated airships. In order to take into account real characteristics of such vehicles, and to reflect practically…
Continuum arms, such as trunk and tentacle robots, lie between the two extremities of rigid and soft robots and promise to capture the best of both worlds in terms of manipulability, dexterity, and compliance. This paper proposes a new…
Despite recent advances in wearable technology, interfacing movement assistance devices with the human body remains challenging. We present a stretchable pneumatic sleeve that can anchor an exosuit actuator to the human arm with a low…
Soft robots are made of compliant materials and perform tasks that are challenging for rigid robots. However, their continuum nature makes it difficult to develop model-based control strategies. This work presents a robust model-based…
Open source hardware has the potential to revolutionise the way we build scientific instruments; with the advent of readily-available 3D printers, mechanical designs can now be shared, improved and replicated faster and more easily than…
Operating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in complex environments that feature dynamic obstacles and external disturbances poses significant challenges, primarily due to the inherent uncertainty in such scenarios. Additionally, inaccurate…
This paper presents the design concept, modeling and motion planning solution for the aerial robotic chain. This design represents a configurable robotic system of systems, consisting of multi-linked micro aerial vehicles that…
Thin-walled structures capable of large, reversible deformation are key to multistable structures, origami, kirigami, and soft robotics. However, conventional fabrication techniques, including 3D printing, casting, and laser cutting, suffer…
Vacuum-forming is a common manufacturing technique for constructing thin plastic shell products by pressing heated plastic sheets onto a mold using atmospheric pressure. Vacuum-forming is ubiquitous in packaging and casing products in…
This paper develops and compares two motion planning algorithms for a tethered UAV with and without the possibility of the tether contacting the confined and cluttered environment. Tethered aerial vehicles have been studied due to their…
Compared to traditional rigid robotics, soft robotics has attracted increasing attention due to its advantages as compliance, safety, and low cost. As an essential part of soft robotics, the soft robotic gripper also shows its superior…
The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…
Furniture assembly is a crucial yet challenging task for robots, requiring precise dual-arm coordination where one arm manipulates parts while the other provides collaborative support and stabilization. To accomplish this task more…
This article introduces a safe control strategy for application of forces to an external object using a dexterous robotic arm mounted on an unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). A hybrid force-motion controller has been developed for this purpose.…
Operating robots precisely and at high speeds has been a long-standing goal of robotics research. Balancing these competing demands is key to enabling the seamless collaboration of robots and humans and increasing task performance. However,…
Current anthropomorphic robotic hands mainly focus on improving their dexterity by devising new mechanical structures and actuation systems. However, most of them rely on a single structure/system (e.g., bone-only) and ignore the fact that…
A challenging and important problem for tendon-driven multi-fingered robotic hands is to ensure grasping adaptivity while minimizing the number of actuators needed to provide human-like functionality. Inspired by the Pisa/IIT SoftHand, this…