Related papers: Simultaneous Position-and-Stiffness Control of Und…
Safe and compliant control of dynamic systems in interaction with the environment, e.g., in shared workspaces, continues to represent a major challenge. Mismatches in the dynamic model of the robots, numerical singularities, and the…
In this paper, we present a controller that combines motion generation and control in one loop, to endow robots with reactivity and safety. In particular, we propose a control approach that enables to follow the motion plan of a first order…
This paper presents a study on the backstepping control of tendon-driven continuum robots for large deflections using the Cosserat rod model. Continuum robots are known for their flexibility and adaptability, making them suitable for…
We propose reaching steps towards the real-time strain control of multiphysics, multiscale continuum soft robots. To study this problem fundamentally, we ground ourselves in a model-based control setting enabled by mathematically precise…
Shared Control methods often use impedance control to track target poses in a robotic manipulator. The guidance behavior of such controllers is shaped by the used stiffness gains, which can be varying over time to achieve an adaptive…
Antagonistic artificial muscles can decouple joint torque and stiffness, but contact transients often degrade this independence. We present a unified real-time framework applicable across pneumatic, electrohydraulic, and dielectric…
While much work has been done recently in the realm of model-based control of soft robots and soft-rigid hybrids, most works examine robots that have an inherently serial structure. While these systems have been prevalent in the literature,…
Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…
Locomotion on dynamic rigid surface (i.e., rigid surface accelerating in an inertial frame) presents complex challenges for controller design, which are essential for deploying humanoid robots in dynamic real-world environments such as…
Operating robots precisely and at high speeds has been a long-standing goal of robotics research. Balancing these competing demands is key to enabling the seamless collaboration of robots and humans and increasing task performance. However,…
Envisioned applications for humanoid robots call for the design of balancing and walking controllers. While promising results have been recently achieved, robust and reliable controllers are still a challenge for the control community…
Impedance control is a well-established technique to control interaction forces in robotics. However, real implementations of impedance control with an inner loop may suffer from several limitations. Although common practice in designing…
In this paper, we propose a dynamic model and control framework for tendon-driven continuum robots (TDCRs) with multiple segments and an arbitrary number of tendons per segment. Our approach leverages the Clarke transform, the…
The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate and test a tendon driven a continuum soft robot with three modular segments, each of which has a tunable stiffness enabled by layer jamming technology. Compared with previous studies, the…
Stability and reliable operation under a spectrum of environmental conditions is still an open challenge for soft and continuum style manipulators. The inability to carry sufficient load and effectively reject external disturbances are two…
Robots are increasingly being deployed not only in workplaces but also in households. Effectively execute of manipulation tasks by robots relies on variable impedance control with contact forces. Furthermore, robots should possess adaptive…
Continuum soft robots are inherently underactuated and subject to intrinsic input constraints, making dynamic control particularly challenging, especially in hybrid rigid-soft robots. While most existing methods focus on quasi-static…
Humanoid robots may require a degree of compliance at the joint level for improving efficiency, shock tolerance, and safe interaction with humans. The presence of joint elasticity, however, complexifies the design of balancing and walking…
Animals can finely modulate their leg stiffness to interact with complex terrains and absorb sudden shocks. In feats like leaping and sprinting, animals demonstrate a sophisticated interplay of opposing muscle pairs that actively modulate…
Soft and soft-rigid hybrid robots are inherently underactuated and operate under tight actuator limits, making task-space control with stability guarantees challenging. Common nonlinear strategies for soft robots (e.g., those based on PD…