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This paper addresses the problem of pushing manipulation with nonholonomic mobile robots. Pushing is a fundamental skill that enables robots to move unwieldy objects that cannot be grasped. We propose a stable pushing method that maintains…
The 'infinite' passive degrees of freedom of soft robotic arms render their control especially challenging. In this paper, we leverage a previously developed model, which drawing equivalence of the soft arm to a series of universal joints,…
Designing controllers for robot swarms is challenging, because human developers have typically no good understanding of the link between the details of a controller that governs individual robots and the swarm behavior that is an indirect…
This work focuses on closed-loop control based on proprioceptive feedback for a pneumatically-actuated soft wearable device aimed at future support of infant reaching tasks. The device comprises two soft pneumatic actuators (one…
Pneumatically-actuated anthropomorphic robots with high degrees of freedom (DOF) offer significant potential for physical human-robot interaction. However, precise control of pneumatic actuators is challenging due to their inherent…
It is doubtful that animals have perfect inverse models of their limbs (e.g., what muscle contraction must be applied to every joint to reach a particular location in space). However, in robot control, moving an arm's end-effector to a…
In this paper, we consider the problem of set-point tracking for a discrete-time plant with unknown plant parameters belonging to a convex and compact uncertainty set. We carry out parameter estimation for an associated auxiliary plant, and…
We consider a single kinematically controlled robot with a bounded control range. The robot travels in a two-dimensional region supporting an unknown unsteady scalar field. A single sensor provides the field value at the current location of…
Continuum robotic grasping, inspired by biological appendages such as octopus arms and elephant trunks, provides a versatile and adaptive approach to object manipulation. Unlike conventional rigid-body grasping, continuum robots leverage…
Ensuring safety is crucial to promote the application of robot manipulators in open workspaces. Factors such as sensor errors or unpredictable collisions make the environment full of uncertainties. In this work, we investigate these…
Laboratory robotics offer the capability to conduct experiments with a high degree of precision and reproducibility, with the potential to transform scientific research. Trivial and repeatable tasks; e.g., sample transportation for analysis…
Learning controllers that reproduce legged locomotion in nature has been a long-time goal in robotics and computer graphics. While yielding promising results, recent approaches are not yet flexible enough to be applicable to legged systems…
This paper presents a scalable control algorithm that enables a deployed mobile robot system to make high-level decisions under full consideration of its probabilistic belief. Our approach is based on insights from the rich literature of…
Robots and intelligent systems that sense or interact with the world are increasingly being used to automate a wide array of tasks. The ability of these systems to complete these tasks depends on a large range of technologies such as the…
This paper proposes a novel model-based policy gradient algorithm for tracking dynamic targets using a mobile robot, equipped with an onboard sensor with limited field of view. The task is to obtain a continuous control policy for the…
In robots, nonprehensile manipulation operations such as pushing are a useful way of moving large, heavy or unwieldy objects, moving multiple objects at once, or reducing uncertainty in the location or pose of objects. In this study, we…
Robots assist in many areas that are considered unsafe for humans to operate. For instance, in handling pandemic diseases such as the recent Covid-19 outbreak and other outbreaks like Ebola, robots can assist in reaching areas dangerous for…
This manuscript presents a model of compliant contacts for time-critical humanoid robot motion control. The proposed model considers the environment as a continuum of spring-damper systems, which allows us to compute the equivalent contact…
Soft robots are made of compliant materials and perform tasks that are challenging for rigid robots. However, their continuum nature makes it difficult to develop model-based control strategies. This work presents a robust model-based…
Assistive robotic arms enable users with physical disabilities to perform everyday tasks without relying on a caregiver. Unfortunately, the very dexterity that makes these arms useful also makes them challenging to teleoperate: the robot…