Related papers: Modular Robots: extending the capabilities of one …
A key challenge in intelligent robotics is creating robots that are capable of directly interacting with the world around them to achieve their goals. The last decade has seen substantial growth in research on the problem of robot…
Teaching Robotics is about empowering students to create and configure robotics devices and program computers to nurture in students the skill sets necessary to play an active role in society. The robot in Figure 1 focuses on the design of…
Despite a slow neuromuscular system, humans easily outperform modern robot technology, especially in physical contact tasks. How is this possible? Biological evidence indicates that motor control of biological systems is achieved by a…
We argue that hierarchical methods can become the key for modular robots achieving reconfigurability. We present a hierarchical approach for modular robots that allows a robot to simultaneously learn multiple tasks. Our evaluation results…
This paper describes an integrated solution to the problem of describing and interpreting goals for robots in open uncertain domains. Given a formal specification of a desired situation, in which objects are described only by their…
Moving a module in a modular robot is a very complex and error-prone process. Unlike in swarm, in the modular robots we are targeting, the moving module must keep the connection to, at least, one other module. In order to miniaturize each…
Cooperation and collaboration robots, co-robots or cobots for short, are an integral part of factories. For example, they work closely with the fitters in the automotive sector, and everyone does what they do best. However, the novel robots…
Deep learning's success in perception, natural language processing, etc. inspires hopes for advancements in autonomous robotics. However, real-world robotics face challenges like variability, high-dimensional state spaces, non-linear…
Deformable object manipulation (DOM) is an emerging research problem in robotics. The ability to manipulate deformable objects endows robots with higher autonomy and promises new applications in the industrial, services, and healthcare…
Robotic systems that are intended to augment human capabilities commonly require the use of semi-autonomous control and artificial sensing, while at the same time aiming to empower the user to make decisions and take actions. This work…
Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…
The realization of universal robots is an ultimate goal of researchers. However, a key hurdle in achieving this goal lies in the robots' ability to manipulate objects in their unstructured surrounding environments according to different…
Although robotic manipulators are used in an ever-growing range of applications, robot manufacturers typically follow a ``one-fits-all'' philosophy, employing identical manipulators in various settings. This often leads to suboptimal…
Humanoid robots have apparently similar body structure like human beings. Due to their technical design, they are sharing the same workspace with humans. They are placed to clean things, to assist old age people, to entertain us and most…
Teams of heterogeneous autonomous robots become increasingly important due to their facilitation of various complex tasks. For such heterogeneous robots, there is currently no consistent way of describing the functions that each robot…
A robot simulation system is a basic need for any robotics application. With it, developers' teams of robots can test their algorithms and make initial calibrations without risk of damage to the real robots, assuring safety. However,…
Training a Neural Network (NN) with lots of parameters or intricate architectures creates undesired phenomena that complicate the optimization process. To address this issue we propose a first modular approach to NN design, wherein the NN…
Robots are often built from standardized assemblies, (e.g. arms, legs, or fingers), but each robot must be trained from scratch to control all the actuators of all the parts together. In this paper we demonstrate a new approach that takes a…
Innovative ideas are continuously emerging to produce better life conditions where essential human needs are supposed to be fulfilled with perfect scenarios leading us to propose modern strategies drawing the future of smart cities. In this…
Traditional aerial vehicles are constrained to perform specific tasks due to their adhoc designs. Based on modularity, we propose a versatile robot, H-ModQuad, that can adapt to different tasks by increasing its load capacity and actuated…