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From ancient times, humans have been using cables and ropes to tie, carry, and manipulate objects by folding knots. However, automating knot folding is challenging because it requires dexterity to move a cable over and under itself. In this…

The ability to manipulate and interlace cables using aerial vehicles can greatly improve aerial transportation tasks. Such interlacing cables create hitches by winding two or more cables around each other, which can enclose payloads or can…

Transporting objects using aerial robots has been widely studied in the literature. Still, those approaches always assume that the connection between the quadrotor and the load is made in a previous stage. However, that previous stage…

Catching objects in flight (i.e., thrown objects) is a common daily skill for humans, yet it presents a significant challenge for robots. This task requires a robot with agile and accurate motion, a large spatial workspace, and the ability…

Today, physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) is a very popular topic in the field of ground manipulation. At the same time, Aerial Physical Interaction (APhI) is also developing very fast. Nevertheless, pHRI with aerial vehicles has not…

Deformable linear objects (e.g., cables, ropes, and threads) commonly appear in our everyday lives. However, perception of these objects and the study of physical interaction with them is still a growing area. There have already been…

Birds in nature perform perching not only for rest but also for interaction with human such as the relationship with falconers. Recently, researchers achieve perching-capable aerial robots as a way to save energy, and deformable structure…

Transporting objects using quadrotors with cables has been widely studied in the literature. However, most of those approaches assume that the cables are previously attached to the load by human intervention. In tasks where multiple objects…

Studying the manipulation of deformable linear objects has significant practical applications in industry, including car manufacturing, textile production, and electronics automation. However, deformable linear object manipulation poses a…

Spider monkeys (genus Ateles) have a prehensile tail that functions as a flexible, multipurpose fifth limb, enabling them to navigate complex terrains, grasp objects of various sizes, and swing between supports. Inspired by the spider…

Most aerial manipulators use serial rigid-link designs, which results in large forces when initiating contacts during manipulation and could cause flight stability difficulty. This limitation could potentially be improved by the compliance…

A novel quadcopter capable of changing shape mid-flight is presented, allowing for operation in four configurations with the capability of sustained hover in three. This is accomplished without requiring actuators beyond the four motors…

We consider the problem of controlling an aerial robot connected to the ground by a passive cable or a passive rigid link. We provide a thorough characterization of this nonlinear dynamical robotic system in terms of fundamental properties…

Multimodal UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are rarely capable of more than two modalities, i.e., flying and walking or flying and perching. However, being able to fly, perch, and walk could further improve their usefulness by expanding…

The physical interaction of aerial robots with their environment has countless potential applications and is an emerging area with many open challenges. Fully-actuated multirotors have been introduced to tackle some of these challenges.…

During operation, aerial manipulation systems are affected by various disturbances. Among them is a gravitational torque caused by the weight of the robotic arm. Common propeller-based actuation is ineffective against such disturbances…

Despite the potential benefits of collaborative robots, effective manipulation tasks with quadruped robots remain difficult to realize. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical control system that can handle real-world collaborative…

There are various desired capabilities to create aerial forest-traversing robots capable of monitoring both biological and abiotic data. The features range from multi-functionality, robustness, and adaptability. These robots have to weather…

Caging is a promising tool which allows a robot to manipulate an object without directly reasoning about the contact dynamics involved. Furthermore, caging also provides useful guarantees in terms of robustness to uncertainty, and often…

Grasping using an aerial robot can have many applications ranging from infrastructure inspection and maintenance to precise agriculture. However, aerial grasping is a challenging problem since the robot has to maintain an accurate position…