Related papers: Reconfigurable Robot Control Using Flexible Coupli…

Tensegrity structures are lightweight, can undergo large deformations, and have outstanding robustness capabilities. These unique properties inspired roboticists to investigate their use. However, the morphological design, control,…

Several design parameters in collective robotic systems have been investigated and developed in order to explore the cooperation among the autonomous robotic individuals in a variety of robotic swarms in the presence of different internal…

Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…

There are various desired capabilities to create aerial forest-traversing robots capable of monitoring both biological and abiotic data. The features range from multi-functionality, robustness, and adaptability. These robots have to weather…

During locomotion, legged robots interact with the ground by sequentially establishing and breaking contact. The interaction wrenches that arise from contact are used to steer the robot Center of Mass (CoM) and reject perturbations that…

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…

Modular Aerial Robotic Systems (MARS) consist of multiple drone units assembled into a single, integrated rigid flying platform. With inherent redundancy, MARS can self-reconfigure into different configurations to mitigate rotor or unit…

Humans show specialized strategies for efficient collaboration. Transferring similar strategies to humanoid robots can improve their capability to interact with other agents, leading the way to complex collaborative scenarios with multiple…

Moving a module in a modular robot is a very complex and error-prone process. Unlike in swarm, in the modular robots we are targeting, the moving module must keep the connection to, at least, one other module. In order to miniaturize each…

Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…

Multi-robot systems, particularly mobile manipulators, face challenges in control coordination and dynamic stability when working together. To address this issue, this study proposes MobiDock, a modular self-reconfigurable mobile…

This letter presents contact-safe Model-based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL) for robot applications that achieves contact-safe behaviors in the learning process. In typical MBRL, we cannot expect the data-driven model to generate accurate…

Successful soft robot modeling approaches appearing in recent literature have been based on a variety of distinct theories, including traditional robotic theory, continuum mechanics, and machine learning. Though specific modeling techniques…

Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example…

Modular self-reconfigurable robots (MSRRs) offer enhanced task flexibility by constructing various structures suitable for each task. However, conventional terrestrial MSRRs equipped with wheels face critical challenges, including…

High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…

This paper considers the problem of maintaining global connectivity of a multi-robot system while executing a desired coordination task. Our approach builds on optimization-based feedback design formulations, where the nominal cost function…

Due to their ability to adapt to different terrains, quadruped robots have drawn much attention in the research field of robot learning. Legged mobile manipulation, where a quadruped robot is equipped with a robotic arm, can greatly enhance…

Multi-robot assembly systems are becoming increasingly appealing in manufacturing due to their ability to automatically, flexibly, and quickly construct desired structural designs. However, effectively planning for these systems in a manner…

The design of amorphous entangled systems, specifically from soft and active materials, has the potential to open exciting new classes of active, shape-shifting, and task-capable 'smart' materials. However, the global emergent mechanics…