Related papers: Constrained Passive Interaction Control: Leveragin…
As robots increasingly operate in shared, safety critical environments, acting safely is no longer sufficient robots must also make their safety decisions intelligible to human collaborators. In human robot collaboration (HRC), behaviours…
Human-robot collaboration aims to extend human ability through cooperation with robots. This technology is currently helping people with physical disabilities, has transformed the manufacturing process of companies, improved surgical…
In robotic manipulation, end-effector compliance is an essential precondition for performing contact-rich tasks, such as machining, assembly, and human-robot interaction. Most robotic arms are position-controlled stiff systems at a hardware…
Wireless communication-based multi-robot systems open the door to cyberattacks that can disrupt safety and performance of collaborative robots. The physical channel supporting inter-robot communication offers an attractive opportunity to…
An outstanding challenge with safety methods for human-robot interaction is reducing their conservatism while maintaining robustness to variations in human behavior. In this work, we propose that robots use confidence-aware game-theoretic…
Stable aerial manipulation during dynamic tasks such as object catching, perching, or contact with rigid surfaces necessarily requires compliant behavior, which is often achieved via impedance control. Successful manipulation depends on how…
Multiple levels of safety measures are required by multiple interaction modes which collaborative robots need to perform industrial tasks with human co-workers. We develop three independent modules to account for safety in different types…
Robotic tasks which involve uncertainty--due to variation in goal, environment configuration, or confidence in task model--may require human input to instruct or adapt the robot. In tasks with physical contact, several existing methods for…
Recently, many humanoid robots have been increasingly deployed in various facilities, including hospitals and assisted living environments, where they are often remotely controlled by human operators. Their kinematic redundancy enhances…
Human-robot interactions have been recognized to be a key element of future industrial collaborative robots (co-robots). Unlike traditional robots that work in structured and deterministic environments, co-robots need to operate in highly…
Continuum robots are well suited for navigating confined and fragile environments, such as vascular or endoluminal anatomy, where contact with surrounding structures is often unavoidable. While controlled contact can assist motion,…
In order to be effective partners for humans, robots must become increasingly comfortable with making contact with their environment. Unfortunately, it is hard for robots to distinguish between ``just enough'' and ``too much'' force: some…
As robots become increasingly prominent in diverse industrial settings, the desire for an accessible and reliable system has correspondingly increased. Yet, the task of meaningfully assessing the feasibility of introducing a new robotic…
When deploying autonomous agents in unstructured environments over sustained periods of time, adaptability and robustness oftentimes outweigh optimality as a primary consideration. In other words, safety and survivability constraints play a…
Stable locomotion in precipitous environments is an essential task for quadruped robots, requiring the ability to resist various external disturbances. Recent neural policies enhance robustness against disturbances by learning to resist…
Robots must make and break contact with the environment to perform useful tasks, but planning and control through contact remains a formidable challenge. In this work, we achieve real-time contact-implicit model predictive control with a…
In order to enable physical human-robot interaction where humans and (mobile) manipulators share their workspace and work together, robots have to be equipped with important capabilities to guarantee human safety. The robots have to…
Compliant robotics have seen successful applications in energy efficient locomotion and cyclic manipulation. However, exploitation of variable physical impedance for energy efficient sequential movements has not been extensively addressed.…
This manuscript introduces a passivity-based integral control approach for fully-actuated mechanical systems. The novelty of our methodology is that we exploit the gyroscopic forces of the mechanical systems to exponentially stabilize the…
Legged robots are typically in rigid contact with the environment at multiple locations, which add a degree of complexity to their control. We present a method to control the motion and a subset of the contact forces of a floating-base…