Related papers: Non-impulsive Contact-Implicit Motion Planning for…
This paper proposes a technique to manipulate an object with a nonholonomic mobile robot by pushing, which is a nonprehensile manipulation motion primitive. Such a primitive involves unilateral constraints associated with the friction…
Combining a vision module inside a closed-loop control system for a \emph{seamless movement} of a robot in a manipulation task is challenging due to the inconsistent update rates between utilized modules. This task is even more difficult in…
To economically deploy robotic manipulators the programming and execution of robot motions must be swift. To this end, we propose a novel, constraint-based method to intuitively specify sequential manipulation tasks and to compute…
Mobile robots are used in various fields, from deliveries to search and rescue applications. Different types of sensors are mounted on the robot to provide accurate navigation and, thus, allow successful completion of its task. In…
We consider the problem of cooperative manipulation by a mobile multi-manipulator system operating in obstacle-cluttered and highly constrained environments under spatio-temporal task specifications. The task requires transporting a grasped…
Legged robots are able to navigate complex terrains by continuously interacting with the environment through careful selection of contact sequences and timings. However, the combinatorial nature behind contact planning hinders the…
This paper presents a novel approach for controlling humanoid robots to push heavy objects. The approach combines kinodynamics-based pose optimization and loco-manipulation model predictive control (MPC). The proposed pose optimization…
This paper addresses the problem of pushing manipulation with nonholonomic mobile robots. Pushing is a fundamental skill that enables robots to move unwieldy objects that cannot be grasped. We propose a stable pushing method that maintains…
Manipulating deformable objects arises in daily life and numerous applications. Despite phenomenal advances in industrial robotics, manipulation of deformable objects remains mostly a manual task. This is because of the high number of…
Trajectory optimization with contact-rich behaviors has recently gained attention for generating diverse locomotion behaviors without pre-specified ground contact sequences. However, these approaches rely on precise models of robot dynamics…
Glovebox decommissioning tasks usually require manipulating relatively heavy objects in a highly constrained environment. Thus, contact with the surroundings becomes inevitable. In order to allow the robot to interact with the environment…
Soft robots are naturally designed to perform safe interactions with their environment, like locomotion and manipulation. In the literature, there are now many concepts, often bio-inspired, to propose new modes of locomotion or grasping.…
Trajectory optimization under uncertainties is a challenging problem for robots in contact with the environment. Such uncertainties are inevitable due to estimation errors, control imperfections, and model mismatches between planning models…
Nonprehensile actions such as pushing are crucial for addressing multi-object rearrangement problems. Many traditional methods generate robot-centric actions, which differ from intuitive human strategies and are typically inefficient. To…
This paper investigates one of the most challenging tasks in dynamic manipulation -- catching large-momentum moving objects. Beyond the realm of quasi-static manipulation, dealing with highly dynamic objects can significantly improve the…
Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…
We present in-hand manipulation tasks where a robot moves an object in grasp, maintains its external contact mode with the environment, and adjusts its in-hand pose simultaneously. The proposed manipulation task leads to complex contact…
Generalizable manipulation requires that robots be able to interact with novel objects and environment. This requirement makes manipulation extremely challenging as a robot has to reason about complex frictional interactions with…
In complex scenarios where typical pick-and-place techniques are insufficient, often non-prehensile manipulation can ensure that a robot is able to fulfill its task. However, non-prehensile manipulation is challenging due to its…
Contact-implicit trajectory optimization offers an appealing method of automatically generating complex and contact-rich behaviors for robot manipulation and locomotion. The scalability of such techniques has been limited, however, by the…