Related papers: Characterizing Manipulation Robustness through Ene…
This paper addresses the challenge of ensuring robustness in the presence of system perturbations for symbolic control techniques. Given a discrete-time control system that is related to its symbolic model by an alternating simulation…
Many robot control scenarios involve assessing system robustness against a task specification. If either the controller or environment are composed of "black-box" components with unknown dynamics, we cannot rely on formal verification to…
Deployment of robotic systems in the real world requires a certain level of robustness in order to deal with uncertainty factors, such as mismatches in the dynamics model, noise in sensor readings, and communication delays. Some approaches…
Robotic manipulation behavior should be robust to disturbances that violate high-level task-structure. Such robustness can be achieved by constantly monitoring the environment to observe the discrete high-level state of the task. This is…
We present a novel method for optimizing the posture of kinematically redundant torque-controlled robots to improve robustness during impacts. A rigid impact model is used as the basis for a configuration-dependent metric that quantifies…
This paper considers the integration of rigid cooperative manipulation with rigidity theory. Motivated by rigid models of cooperative manipulation systems, i.e., where the grasping contacts are rigid, we introduce first the notion of…
This work establishes a solution to the problem of assessing the capacity of multi-object assemblies to withstand external forces without becoming unstable. Our physically-grounded approach handles arbitrary structures made from rigid…
We present a sampling-based approach to reasoning about the caging-based manipulation of rigid and a simplified class of deformable 3D objects subject to energy constraints. Towards this end, we propose the notion of soft fixtures extending…
Voltage stability in modern power systems involves coupled dynamics across multiple time scales. Conventional methods based on time-scale separation or static stability margins may overlook instabilities caused by the coupling of slow and…
The paper presents a new stiffness modelling method for multi-chain parallel robotic manipulators with flexible links and compliant actuating joints. In contrast to other works, the method involves a FEA-based link stiffness evaluation and…
Humans seamlessly fuse anticipatory planning with immediate feedback to perform successive mobile manipulation tasks without stopping, achieving both high efficiency and reliability. Replicating this fluid and reliable behavior in robots…
A key challenge towards reliable robotic control is devising computational models that can both learn policies and guarantee robustness when deployed in the field. Inspired by the free energy principle in computational neuroscience, to…
The multidisciplinarity of robotics creates a need for robust integration methodologies that can facilitate the adoption of state-of-the-art research components in an industrial application. Unfortunately, there are no clear, community…
Caging is a promising tool which allows a robot to manipulate an object without directly reasoning about the contact dynamics involved. Furthermore, caging also provides useful guarantees in terms of robustness to uncertainty, and often…
The paper presents a systematic approach for stiffness modeling of manipulators with complex and hybrid structures using matrix structural analysis. In contrast to previous results, it is suitable for mixed architectures containing…
While modeling multi-contact manipulation as a quasi-static mechanical process transitioning between different contact equilibria, we propose formulating it as a planning and optimization problem, explicitly evaluating (i) contact stability…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
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…
We study the robustness of system estimation to parametric perturbations in system dynamics and initial conditions. We define the problem of sensitivity-based parametric uncertainty quantification in dynamical system estimation. The main…
Precise and flexible cart-pushing is a challenging task for mobile robots. The motion constraints during cart-pushing and the robot's redundancy lead to complex motion planning problems, while variable payloads and disturbances present…