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Multivalent cargo that can interact with substrates via multiple interaction sites exhibit shared characteristics despite being found in different systems at different length-scales. Here, a general analytical model has been developed that…
This paper addresses the problem of cooperative transport of a point mass hoisted by two aerial robots. Treating the robots as a leader and a follower, the follower stabilizes the system with respect to the leader using only feedback from…
Air-bearing platforms for simulating the rotational dynamics of satellites require highly precise ground truth systems. Unfortunately, commercial motion capture systems used for this scope are complex and expensive. This paper shows a novel…
This paper discusses the conceptual design and proof-of-concept flight demonstration of a novel variable pitch quadrotor biplane Unmanned Aerial Vehicle concept for payload delivery. The proposed design combines vertical takeoff and landing…
Humanoid robots deployed in industrial environments are required to perform load-carrying transportation tasks that tightly couple locomotion and manipulation. However, achieving stable and robust locomotion under varying payloads and…
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…
Overactuated tilt-rotor platforms offer many advantages over traditional fixed-arm drones, allowing the decoupling of the applied force from the attitude of the robot. This expands their application areas to aerial interaction and…
This paper introduces a novel attitude controller for spacecraft subject to actuator saturation and multiple exclusion cone constraints. The proposed solution relies on a two-layer approach where the first layer prestabilizes the system…
Aerial unperching of multirotors has received little attention as opposed to perching that has been investigated to elongate operation time. This study presents a new aerial robot capable of both perching and unperching autonomously on/from…
Payload grasping and transportation with quadcopters is an active research area that has rapidly developed over the last decade. To grasp a payload without human interaction, most state-of-the-art approaches apply robotic arms that are…
This paper addresses the problem of tracking the position of a cable-suspended payload carried by an unmanned aerial vehicle, with a focus on real-world deployment and minimal hardware requirements. In contrast to many existing approaches…
The joint optimization of physical parameters and controllers in robotic systems is challenging. This is due to the difficulties of predicting the effect that changes in physical parameters have on final performances. At the same time,…
Mobile manipulation is a fundamental capability for general-purpose robotic agents, requiring both coordinated control of the mobile base and manipulator and robust perception under dynamically changing viewpoints. However, existing…
This paper presents the mathematical modeling, controller design, and flight-testing of an over-actuated Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) tiltwing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Based on simplified aerodynamics and first-principles, a…
Utilizing a servo to tilt each rotor transforms quadrotors from underactuated to overactuated systems, allowing for independent control of both attitude and position, which provides advantages for aerial manipulation. However, this…
This paper presents a continuous optimization approach to DCOC and its application to spacecraft high-precision attitude control. The approach computes a control input sequence that maximizes the time-before-exit by solving a nonlinear…
This work proposes a novel cooperative transportation framework for multi-agent systems that does not require any prior knowledge of cargo locations or sizes. Each agent relies on local sensing to detect cargos, recruit nearby agents, and…
This paper investigates payload grasping from a moving platform using a hook-equipped aerial manipulator. First, a computationally efficient trajectory optimization based on complementarity constraints is proposed to determine the optimal…
This paper introduces a quadrotor's autonomous take-off and landing system on a moving platform. The designed system addresses three challenging problems: fast pose estimation, restricted external localization, and effective obstacle…
This paper discusses the design and the performance achievable with active aerodynamic attitude control in very low Earth orbit, i.e. below 450 km in altitude. A novel real-time algorithm is proposed for selecting the angles of deflection…