Related papers: Cooperative Modular Manipulation with Numerous Cab…
Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), particularly quadrotors, have shown significant potential in assisting humans with tasks such as construction and package delivery. These applications benefit greatly from the use of cables for…
Collaborative transportation of heavy payloads via loco-manipulation is a challenging yet essential capability for legged robots operating in complex, unstructured environments. Centralized planning methods, e.g., holistic trajectory…
Cable-driven continuum robots (CDCRs) are widely used in surgical and inspection tasks that require dexterous manipulation in confined spaces. Existing model-based estimation methods either assume constant curvature or rely on…
This paper presents the first decentralized method to enable real-world 6-DoF manipulation of a cable-suspended load using a team of Micro-Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Our method leverages multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to train an…
Cooperative transportation, a key aspect of logistics cyber-physical systems (CPS), is typically approached using dis tributed control and optimization-based methods. The distributed control methods consume less time, but poorly handle and…
We propose a novel hybrid cable-based robot with manipulator and camera for high-accuracy, medium-throughput plant monitoring in a vertical hydroponic farm and, as an example application, demonstrate non-destructive plant mass estimation.…
Sparse and feature SLAM methods provide robust camera pose estimation. However, they often fail to capture the level of detail required for inspection and scene awareness tasks. Conversely, dense SLAM approaches generate richer scene…
Recent years in robotics and imitation learning have shown remarkable progress in training large-scale foundation models by leveraging data across a multitude of embodiments. The success of such policies might lead us to wonder: just how…
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) controllers for quadrupedal locomotion have demonstrated impressive performance on challenging terrains, allowing robots to execute complex skills such as climbing, running, and jumping. However, existing…
In cluttered spaces, such as forests, drone picking up a payload via an abseil claw is an open challenge, as the cable is likely tangled and blocked by the branches and obstacles. To address such a challenge, in this work, a cooperative…
Transporting a heavy payload using multiple aerial robots (MARs) is an efficient manner to extend the load capacity of a single aerial robot. However, existing schemes for the multiple aerial robots transportation system (MARTS) still lack…
In this paper, we introduce the concept of using passive arm structures with intrinsic impedance for robot-robot and human-robot collaborative carrying with quadruped robots. The concept is meant for a leader-follower task and takes a…
Cooperative manipulation tasks impose various structure-, task-, and robot-specific constraints on mobile manipulators. However, current methods struggle to model and solve these myriad constraints simultaneously. We propose a twofold…
This paper presents a simplified model-based trajectory optimization (TO) formulation for motion planning on quadruped mobile manipulators that carry heavy payload of known mass. The proposed payload-aware formulation simultaneously plans…
In hazardous and remote environments, robotic systems perform critical tasks demanding improved safety and efficiency. Among these, quadruped robots with manipulator arms offer mobility and versatility for complex operations. However,…
Solving mobile manipulation tasks in inaccessible and dangerous environments is an important application of robots to support humans. Example domains are construction and maintenance of manned and unmanned stations on the moon and other…
Robotic collaborative carrying could greatly benefit human activities like warehouse and construction site management. However, coordinating the simultaneous motion of multiple robots represents a significant challenge. Existing works…
Unknown dynamic load carrying is one important practical application for quadruped robots. Such a problem is non-trivial, posing three major challenges in quadruped locomotion control. First, how to model or represent the dynamics of the…
Human-robot co-carrying tasks reveal their potential in both industrial and everyday applications by leveraging the strengths of both parties. Effective control of robots in these tasks requires managing the energy level in the closed-loop…
This paper presents a novel method for assistive load carrying using quadruped robots. The controller uses proprioceptive sensor data to estimate external base wrench, that is used for precise control of the robot's acceleration during…