Related papers: Using R-functions to Control the Shape of Soft Rob…
Rigid-formation navigation of multiple robots is essential for applications such as cooperative transportation. This process involves a team of collaborative robots maintaining a predefined geometric configuration, such as a square, while…
Almost all robotic systems in use have hard shells, which is limiting in many ways their full potential of physical interaction with humans or their surrounding environment. Robots with soft-shell covers offer an alternative morphology…
Many tasks in graphics and vision demand machinery for converting shapes into consistent representations with sparse sets of parameters; these representations facilitate rendering, editing, and storage. When the source data is noisy or…
Feedback motion planning over cell decompositions provides a robust method for generating collision-free robot motion with formal guarantees. However, existing algorithms often produce paths with unnecessary bending, leading to slower…
With soft robotics being increasingly employed in settings demanding high and controlled contact forces, recent research has demonstrated the use of soft robots to estimate or intrinsically sense forces without requiring external sensing…
Consider an $s$-dimensional function being evaluated at $n$ points of a low discrepancy sequence (LDS), where the objective is to approximate the one-dimensional functions that result from integrating out $(s-1)$ variables. Here, the…
Hybrid rigid-soft robots combine the precision of rigid manipulators with the compliance and adaptability of soft arms, offering a promising approach for versatile grasping in unstructured environments. However, coordinating hybrid robots…
We present a methodology for fast prototyping of morphologies and controllers for robot locomotion. Going beyond simulation-based approaches, we argue that the form and function of a robot, as well as their interplay with real-world…
Deformable object manipulation is a classical and challenging research area in robotics. Compared with rigid object manipulation, this problem is more complex due to the deformation properties including elastic, plastic, and elastoplastic…
We present a zero-shot deformation reconstruction framework for soft robots that operates without any visual supervision at inference time. In this work, zero-shot deformation reconstruction is defined as the ability to infer object-wide…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
In this paper, we address the shape formation problem for massive robot swarms in environments where external localization systems are unavailable. Achieving this task effectively with solely onboard measurements is still scarcely explored…
These are lectures given at the 2022 Arizona Winter School. It gives an introduction to the rigidity method for constructing automorphic forms for semisimple groups over function fields. The rigidity method leads to explicit constructions…
The robotic manipulation of deformable linear objects has shown great potential in a wide range of real-world applications. However, it presents many challenges due to the objects' complex nonlinearity and high-dimensional configuration. In…
This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…
In this paper we present a novel approach for representing and evolving deformable active contours. The method combines piecewise regular B{\'e}zier models and curve evolution defined by local Free Form Deformation. The contour deformation…
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of digital fabrication to enable online learning, which remains a challenge for robotics courses. We introduce a teaching methodology that allows students to participate remotely in a…
Due to their ability to move without sliding relative to their environment, soft growing robots are attractive for deploying distributed sensor networks in confined spaces. Sensing of the state of such robots would also add to their…
Compliant grippers, owing to adaptivity and safety, have attracted considerable attention for unstructured grasping in real applications, such as industrial or logistic scenarios. However, accurately modeling the bidirectional relationship…