Related papers: Contact Models in Robotics: a Comparative Analysis
Humans can exploit contacts anywhere on their body surface to manipulate large and heavy items, objects normally out of reach or multiple objects at once. However, such manipulation through contacts using the whole surface of the body…
Surrogate models provide compact relations between user-defined input parameters and output quantities of interest, enabling the efficient evaluation of complex parametric systems in many-query settings. Such capabilities are essential in a…
Purpose of Review: To effectively synthesise and analyse multi-robot behaviour, we require formal task-level models which accurately capture multi-robot execution. In this paper, we review modelling formalisms for multi-robot systems under…
Modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context presents one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics today, due to the vast range of scales and numerous physical processes involved. Here we review the current status of models that…
The number of tools for dynamics simulation has grown in the last years. It is necessary for the robotics community to have elements to ponder which of the available tools is the best for their research. As a complement to an objective and…
Machine learning is poised as a very powerful tool that can drastically improve our ability to carry out scientific research. However, many issues need to be addressed before this becomes a reality. This article focuses on one particular…
Autonomous robots have the potential to serve as versatile caregivers that improve quality of life for millions of people worldwide. Yet, conducting research in this area presents numerous challenges, including the risks of physical…
The development of algorithms for automation of subtasks during robotic surgery can be accelerated by the availability of realistic simulation environments. In this work, we focus on one aspect of the realism of a surgical simulator, which…
Soft robots show compliance and have infinite degrees of freedom. Thanks to these properties, such robots can be leveraged for surgery, rehabilitation, biomimetics, unstructured environment exploring, and industrial grippers. In this case,…
Humans can leverage physical interaction to teach robot arms. This physical interaction takes multiple forms depending on the task, the user, and what the robot has learned so far. State-of-the-art approaches focus on learning from a single…
Robots must make and break contact with the environment to perform useful tasks, but planning and control through contact remains a formidable challenge. In this work, we achieve real-time contact-implicit model predictive control with a…
In this paper, we present a framework that unites obstacle avoidance and deliberate physical interaction for robotic manipulators. As humans and robots begin to coexist in work and household environments, pure collision avoidance is…
In robotics, simulation has the potential to reduce design time and costs, and lead to a more robust engineered solution and a safer development process. However, the use of simulators is predicated on the availability of good models. This…
Developing robot controllers in a simulated environment is advantageous but transferring the controllers to the target environment presents challenges, often referred to as the "sim-to-real gap". We present a method for continuous…
Safe human-robot interactions require robots to be able to learn how to behave appropriately in \sout{humans' world} \rev{spaces populated by people} and thus to cope with the challenges posed by our dynamic and unstructured environment,…
This technical report provides an in-depth evaluation of both established and state-of-the-art methods for simulating constrained rigid multi-body systems with hard-contact dynamics, using formulations of Nonlinear Complementarity Problems…
Over the past few years, robotics simulators have largely improved in efficiency and scalability, enabling them to generate years of simulated data in a few hours. Yet, efficiently and accurately computing the simulation derivatives remains…
A shared grasp is a grasp formed by contacts between the manipulated object and both the robot hand and the environment. By trading off hand contacts for environmental contacts, a shared grasp requires fewer contacts with the hand, and…
Recent research on mobile robots has focused on increasing their adaptability to unpredictable and unstructured environments using soft materials and structures. However, the determination of key design parameters and control over these…
In order to enable physical human-robot interaction where humans and (mobile) manipulators share their workspace and work together, robots have to be equipped with important capabilities to guarantee human safety. The robots have to…