Related papers: Non-impulsive Contact-Implicit Motion Planning for…
Soft robots, inspired by elephant trunks or octopus arms, offer extraordinary flexibility to bend, twist, and elongate in ways that rigid robots cannot. However, their motion planning remains a challenge, especially in cluttered…
In this theoretical study, we present an analytical framework to investigate the slithering motion of snakes on flat surfaces. While previous studies have predominantly relied on numerical methods to identify optimal locomotion kinematics,…
Manipulating deformable linear objects (DLOs) is challenging due to their complex dynamics and the need for safe interaction in contact-rich environments. Most existing models focus on shape prediction alone and fail to account for contact…
Linear models for control and motion generation of humanoid robots have received significant attention in the past years, not only due to their well known theoretical guarantees, but also because of practical computational advantages.…
In this paper, we present a new locomotion control method for soft robot snakes. Inspired by biological snakes, our control architecture is composed of two key modules: A deep reinforcement learning (RL) module for achieving adaptive…
The adaptability of soft robots makes them ideal candidates to maneuver through unstructured environments. However, locomotion challenges arise due to complexities in modeling the body mechanics, actuation, and robot-environment dynamics.…
In this paper, we propose a contact-implicit trajectory optimization (CITO) method based on a variable smooth contact model (VSCM) and successive convexification (SCvx). The VSCM facilitates the convergence of gradient-based optimization…
Legged manipulators, such as quadrupeds equipped with robotic arms, require motion planning techniques that account for their complex kinematic constraints in order to perform manipulation tasks both safely and effectively. However,…
A typical manipulation task consists of a manipulator equipped with a gripper to grasp and move an object with constraints on the motion of the hand-held object, which may be due to the nature of the task itself or from object-environment…
This paper introduces a framework for interactive navigation through adaptive non-prehensile mobile manipulation. A key challenge in this process is handling objects with unknown dynamics, which are difficult to infer from visual…
As legged robots take on roles in industrial and autonomous construction, collaborative loco-manipulation is crucial for handling large and heavy objects that exceed the capabilities of a single robot. However, ensuring the safety of these…
Robotic manipulation stands as a largely unsolved problem despite significant advances in robotics and machine learning in recent years. One of the key challenges in manipulation is the exploration of the dynamics of the environment when…
This paper addresses the kinodynamic motion planning for non-holonomic robots in dynamic environments with both static and dynamic obstacles -- a challenging problem that lacks a universal solution yet. One of the promising approaches to…
Wheel-legged robots with integrated manipulators hold great promise for mobile manipulation in logistics, industrial automation, and human-robot collaboration. However, unified control of such systems remains challenging due to the…
Differentiable simulators promise to improve sample efficiency in robot learning by providing analytic gradients of the system dynamics. Yet, their application to contact-rich tasks like locomotion is complicated by the inherently…
This work proposes a kinodynamic motion planning technique for collaborative object transportation by multiple mobile manipulators in dynamic environments. A global path planner computes a linear piecewise path from start to goal. A novel…
Manipulation planning is the problem of finding a sequence of robot configurations that involves interactions with objects in the scene, e.g., grasping and placing an object, or more general tool-use. To achieve such interactions,…
Continuum robots (CR) offer excellent dexterity and compliance in contrast to rigid-link robots, making them suitable for navigating through, and interacting with, confined environments. However, the study of path planning for CRs while…
Whereas naturally occurring swarms thrive when crowded, physical interactions in robotic swarms are either avoided or carefully controlled, thus limiting their operational density. Here we present a mechanical design rule that allows robots…
Legged robot locomotion on sand slopes is challenging due to the complex dynamics of granular media and how the lack of solid surfaces can hinder locomotion. A promising strategy, inspired by ghost crabs and other organisms in nature, is to…