Related papers: Biological Organisms as End Effectors
In limbed robotics, end-effectors must serve dual functions, such as both feet for locomotion and grippers for grasping, which presents design challenges. This paper introduces a multi-modal end-effector capable of transitioning between…
Cyber human interaction is a broad term encompassing the range of interactions that humans can have with technology. While human interaction with fixed and mobile computers is well understood, the world is on the cusp of ubiquitous and…
This paper presents a robotic in-hand manipulation technique that can be applied to pick an object too large to grasp in a prehensile manner, by taking advantage of its contact interactions with a curved, passive end-effector, and two flat…
Novel end-user programming (EUP) tools enable on-the-fly (i.e., spontaneous, easy, and rapid) creation of interactions with robotic systems. These tools are expected to empower users in determining system behavior, although very little is…
Existing approaches to direct robot-to-human handovers are typically implemented on fixed-base robot arms, or on mobile manipulators that come to a full stop before performing the handover. We propose "on-the-go" handovers which permit a…
We begin this paper by presenting our approach to robot manipulation, which emphasizes the benefits of making contact with the world across the entire manipulator. We assume that low contact forces are benign, and focus on the development…
Sensors play a fundamental role in achieving the complex behaviors typically found in biological organisms. However, their potential role in the design of artificial agents is often overlooked. This often results in the design of robots…
Aerial robotic arms aim to enable inspection and environment interaction in otherwise hard-to-reach areas from the air. However, many aerial manipulators feature bulky or heavy robot manipulators mounted to large, high-payload aerial…
Robots with multi-fingered grippers could perform advanced manipulation tasks for us if we were able to properly specify to them what to do. In this study, we take a step in that direction by making a robot grasp an object like a grasping…
Animals can accomplish many incredible behavioral feats across a wide range of operational environments and scales that current robots struggle to match. One explanation for this performance gap is the extraordinary properties of the…
In this article we address the problem of catching objects that move at a relatively large distance from the robot, of the order of tens of times the size of the robot itself. To this purpose, we adopt casting manipulation and visual-based…
The human brain's plasticity allows for the integration of artificial body parts into the human body. Leveraging this, embodied systems realize intuitive interactions with the environment. We introduce a novel concept: embodied swarm…
People who need robots are often not the same as people who can program them. This key observation in human-robot interaction (HRI) has lead to a number of challenges when developing robotic applications, since developers must understand…
In this paper we present an open source educational robot, designed both to engage children in an affective and social interaction, and to be programmable also in its social and affective behaviour. Indeed the robot, in addition to classic…
Visual loco-manipulation of arbitrary objects in the wild with humanoid robots requires accurate end-effector (EE) control and a generalizable understanding of the scene via visual inputs (e.g., RGB-D images). Existing approaches are based…
The 3D shape of a robot's end-effector plays a critical role in determining it's functionality and overall performance. Many industrial applications rely on task-specific gripper designs to ensure the system's robustness and accuracy.…
Effective Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is fundamental to seamlessly integrating robotic systems into our daily lives. However, current communication modes require additional technological interfaces, which can be cumbersome and indirect.…
Robotic systems that are intended to augment human capabilities commonly require the use of semi-autonomous control and artificial sensing, while at the same time aiming to empower the user to make decisions and take actions. This work…
This paper addresses recursive markerless estimation of a robot's end-effector using visual observations from its cameras. The problem is formulated into the Bayesian framework and addressed using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) filtering. We…
Several abilities of biological systems, such as adaptation to natural environment, or of animals to learn patterns when appropriately trained, are features that are extremely useful, if emulated by electronic circuits, in applications…