Related papers: Holonomic Control of Arbitrary Configurations of D…
The Modboat is a low-cost, underactuated, modular robot capable of surface swimming, docking to other modules, and undocking from them using only a single motor and two passive flippers. Undocking is achieved by causing intentional…
The Modboat is a low-cost, underactuated, modular robot capable of surface swimming. It is able to swim individually, dock to other Modboats, and undock from them using only a single motor and two passive flippers. Undocking without…
We describe a docking mechanism and strategy to allow modular self-assembly for the Modboat: an inexpensive underactuated oscillating swimming robot powered by a single motor. Because propulsion is achieved through oscillation, orientation…
The Modboat is an autonomous surface robot that turns the oscillation of a single motor into a controlled paddling motion through passive flippers. Inertial control methods developed in prior work can successfully drive the Modboat along…
We propose a scalable cooperative control approach which coordinates a group of rigidly connected autonomous surface vessels to track desired trajectories in a planar water environment as a single floating modular structure. Our approach…
Multi-robot systems, particularly mobile manipulators, face challenges in control coordination and dynamic stability when working together. To address this issue, this study proposes MobiDock, a modular self-reconfigurable mobile…
This paper presents a low-cost, centralized modular underwater robot platform, ModCube, which can be used to study swarm coordination for a wide range of tasks in underwater environments. A ModCube structure consists of multiple ModCube…
We present a novel design for a low-cost robotic boat powered by a single actuator, useful for both modular and swarming applications. The boat uses the conservation of angular momentum and passive flippers to convert the motion of a single…
Self-assembly enables multi-robot systems to merge diverse capabilities and accomplish tasks beyond the reach of individual robots. Incorporating varied docking mechanisms layouts (DMLs) can enhance robot versatility or reduce costs.…
We develop a hierarchical control architecture for autonomous docking maneuvers of a dynamic positioning vessel and provide formal safety guarantees. At the upper-level, we treat the vessel's desired surge, sway, and yaw velocities as…
True microrobots, in contrast with externally controlled microparticles, must harvest or carry their own source of energy, as well as their own (preferably programmable) microcontroller of actuators for locomotion, using information…
We propose a hybrid approach for decentralized multi-robot navigation that ensures both safety and deadlock prevention. Building on a standard control formulation, we add a lightweight deadlock prevention mechanism by forming temporary…
Sailing robots provide a low-cost solution to conduct the ocean missions such as marine exploration, pollution detection, and border surveillance, etc. However, compared with other propeller-driven surface vessels, sailboat suffers in…
Modular robots can be rearranged into a new design, perhaps each day, to handle a wide variety of tasks by forming a customized robot for each new task. However, reconfiguring just the mechanism is not sufficient: each design also requires…
Circumnavigation control is useful in real-world applications such as entrapping a hostile target. In this paper, we consider a heterogeneous multi-robot system where robots have different physical properties, such as maximum movement…
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…
Sidewinding, a locomotion strategy characterized by the coordination of lateral and vertical body undulations, is frequently observed in rattlesnakes and has been successfully reconstructed by limbless robotic systems for effective movement…
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…
The problem of orbital stabilization of underactuated mechanical systems with one passive degree-of-freedom (DOF) is revisited. Virtual holonomic constraints are enforced using a continuous controller; this results in a dense set of closed…
Nonholonomic control is a candidate to control nonlinear systems with path-dependant states. We investigate an underactuated flying micro-aerial-vehicle, the ionocraft, that requires nonholonomic control in the yaw-direction for complete…