Related papers: Non-impulsive Contact-Implicit Motion Planning for…
Humanoid robots are machines built with an anthropomorphic shape. Despite decades of research into the subject, it is still challenging to tackle the robot locomotion problem from an algorithmic point of view. For example, these machines…
Animals use limbs for both locomotion and manipulation. We aim to equip quadruped robots with similar versatility. This work introduces a system that enables quadruped robots to interact with objects using their legs, inspired by…
In this work, we build on our method for manipulating unknown objects via contact configuration regulation: the estimation and control of the location, geometry, and mode of all contacts between the robot, object, and environment. We…
Micromanipulation systems leverage automation and robotic technologies to improve the precision, repeatability, and efficiency of various tasks at the microscale. However, current approaches are typically limited to specific objects or…
In this paper, we propose a novel strategy for a snake robot to move straight up a cylindrical surface. Prior works on pole-climbing for a snake robot mainly utilized a rolling helix gait, and although proven to be efficient, it does not…
Robotic manipulation demands precise control over both contact forces and motion trajectories. While force control is essential for achieving compliant interaction and high-frequency adaptation, it is limited to operations in close…
In robots, nonprehensile manipulation operations such as pushing are a useful way of moving large, heavy or unwieldy objects, moving multiple objects at once, or reducing uncertainty in the location or pose of objects. In this study, we…
A cable-driven soft-bodied robot with redundancy can conduct the trajectory tracking task and in the meanwhile fulfill some extra constraints, such as tracking through an end-effector in designated orientation, or get rid of the evitable…
Direct collocation methods are powerful tools to solve trajectory optimization problems in robotics. While their resulting trajectories tend to be dynamically accurate, they may also present large kinematic errors in the case of constrained…
Snakes' bodies are covered in scales that make it easier to slide in some directions than in others. This frictional anisotropy allows for sliding locomotion with an undulatory gait, one of the most common for snakes. Isotropic friction is…
Intelligent control of soft robots is challenging due to the nonlinear and difficult-to-model dynamics. One promising model-free approach for soft robot control is reinforcement learning (RL). However, model-free RL methods tend to be…
Non-prehensile manipulation using onboard sensing presents a fundamental challenge: the manipulated object occludes the sensor's field of view, creating occluded regions that can lead to collisions. We propose CURA-PPO, a reinforcement…
The Drosophila larva, a soft-body animal, can bend its body and roll efficiently to escape danger. However, contrary to common belief, this rolling motion is not driven by the imbalance of gravity and ground reaction forces. Through…
Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…
Snakes can traverse almost all types of environments by bending their elongate bodies in 3-D to interact with the terrain. Similarly, a snake robot is a promising platform to perform critical tasks in various environments. Understanding how…
We optimize three-dimensional snake kinematics for locomotor efficiency. We assume a general space-curve representation of the snake backbone with small-to-moderate lifting off the ground and negligible body inertia. The cost of locomotion…
Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…
Robot manipulation in cluttered scenes often requires contact-rich interactions with objects. It can be more economical to interact via non-prehensile actions, for example, push through other objects to get to the desired grasp pose,…
In this paper, we address the challenge of performing non-prehensile pushing operations with a compliant robotic manipulation system. To ensure safe operations in human-populated environments, robots must comply with external physical…
Planning locomotion trajectories for legged microrobots is challenging because of their complex morphology, high frequency passive dynamics, and discontinuous contact interactions with their environment. Consequently, such research is often…