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Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, a…
We examine the problem of snake-like locomotion by studying a system consisting of a planar inextensible elastic rod that is able to control its spontaneous curvature. Using a Cosserat model we derive, through variational principles, the…
Rehabilitation of aging pipes requires accurate condition assessment and mapping far into the pipe interiors. Soft growing vine robot systems are particularly promising for navigating confined, sinuous paths such as in pipes, but are…
This work proposes a safety-critical local reactive controller that enables the robot to navigate in unknown and cluttered environments. In particular, the trajectory tracking task is formulated as a constrained polynomial optimization…
Exploration and mapping of unknown environments is a fundamental task in applications for autonomous robots. In this article, we present a complete framework for deploying MAVs in autonomous exploration missions in unknown subterranean…
Self-adaptive robots operate in dynamic, unpredictable environments where unaddressed uncertainties can lead to safety violations and operational failures. However, systematically identifying and analyzing these uncertainties, including…
This paper presents a method for cave surveying in total darkness using an autonomous aerial vehicle equipped with a depth camera for mapping, downward-facing camera for state estimation, and forward and downward lights. Traditional methods…
Safety concerns during the operation of legged robots must be addressed to enable their widespread use. Machine learning-based control methods that use model-based constraints provide promising means to improve robot safety. This study…
Legged locomotion shows promise for running in complex, unstructured environments. Designing such legged robots requires considering heterogeneous, multi-domain constraints and variables, from mechanical hardware and geometry choices to…
In swarm robotics, just as for an animal swarm in Nature, one of the aims is to reach and maintain a desired configuration. One of the possibilities for the team, to reach this aim, is to see what its neighbours are doing. This approach…
Our brain has an inner global positioning system which enables us to sense and navigate 3D spaces in real time. Can mobile robots replicate such a biological feat in a dynamic environment? We introduce the first spatial reasoning framework…
Although autonomy has gained widespread usage in structured and controlled environments, robotic autonomy in unknown and off-road terrain remains a difficult problem. Extreme, off-road, and unstructured environments such as undeveloped…
This study presents an advanced approach to enhance robotic manipulation in uncertain and challenging environments, with a focus on autonomous operations augmented by human-in-the-loop (HITL) control for lunar missions. By integrating human…
How do we move a robot efficiently from one position to another? To answer this question, we need to understand its configuration space, a 'map' where we can find every possible position of the robot. Unfortunately, these maps are very…
Some animals exhibit multi-modal locomotion capability to traverse a wide range of terrains and environments, such as amphibians that can swim and walk or birds that can fly and walk. This capability is extremely beneficial for expanding…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
Exploration of unknown, unstructured environments, such as in search and rescue, cave exploration, and planetary missions,presents significant challenges due to their unpredictable nature. This unpredictability can lead to inefficient path…
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.…
Providing mobile robots with the ability to manipulate objects has, despite decades of research, remained a challenging problem. The problem is approachable in constrained environments where there is ample prior knowledge of the environment…
A nonholonomic under-actuated robot with a bounded control range travels inside an unknown and unstructured 3D tunnel bounded by a generic 2D surface. The robot has access to the nearest point of the surface and measures the distance to the…