Related papers: Hybrid Continuum-Eversion Robot: Precise Navigatio…
A system and testing rig were designed and built to simulate the use of an eversion robot equipped with a radiation sensor to characterise an irradiated pipe prior to decommissioning. The magnets were used as dummy radiation sources which…
In today's chemical plants, human field operators perform frequent integrity checks to guarantee high safety standards, and thus are possibly the first to encounter dangerous operating conditions. To alleviate their task, we present a…
Autonomous navigation is a fundamental task for robot vacuum cleaners in indoor environments. Since their core function is to clean entire areas, robots inevitably encounter dead zones in cluttered and narrow scenarios. Existing planning…
In mobile robotics, coverage navigation refers to the deliberate movement of a robot with the purpose of covering a certain area or volume. Performing this task properly is fundamental for the execution of several activities, for instance,…
With the growing emphasis on the development and integration of service robots within household environments, we will need to endow robots with the ability to reliably pour a variety of liquids. However, liquid handling and pouring is a…
This paper proposes an end-to-end deep reinforcement learning approach for mobile robot navigation with dynamic obstacles avoidance. Using experience collected in a simulation environment, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is trained to…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…
Tracking control has been a vital research topic in robotics. This paper presents a novel hybrid control strategy for an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) based on a bioinspired neural dynamics model. An enhanced backstepping kinematic…
Coordinated multi-robot navigation is an essential ability for a team of robots operating in diverse environments. Robot teams often need to maintain specific formations, such as wedge formations, to enhance visibility, positioning, and…
This paper addresses the autonomous robot navigation problem in a priori unknown n-dimensional environments containing disjoint convex obstacles of arbitrary shapes and sizes, with pairwise distances strictly greater than the robot's…
Continuum robots are well suited for navigating confined and fragile environments, such as vascular or endoluminal anatomy, where contact with surrounding structures is often unavoidable. While controlled contact can assist motion,…
Soft robots have been leveraged in considerable areas like surgery, rehabilitation, and bionics due to their softness, flexibility, and safety. However, it is challenging to produce two same soft robots even with the same mold and…
A hybrid continuum robot design is introduced that combines a proximal tendon-actuated section with a distal telescoping section comprised of permanent-magnet spheres actuated using an external magnet. While, individually, each section can…
Cable-driven continuum robots offer high flexibility and lightweight design, making them well-suited for tasks in constrained and unstructured environments. However, prolonged use can induce mechanical fatigue from plastic deformation and…
This paper introduces a novel Hybrid Visual Servoing (HVS) approach for controlling tendon-driven continuum robots (TDCRs). The HVS system combines Image-Based Visual Servoing (IBVS) with Deep Learning-Based Visual Servoing (DLBVS) to…
Tip-growing eversion robots are renowned for their ability to access remote spaces through narrow passages. However, achieving reliable navigation remains a significant challenge. Existing solutions often rely on artificial muscles…
This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…
High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…
We present a novel outdoor navigation algorithm to generate stable and efficient actions to navigate a robot to reach a goal. We use a multi-stage training pipeline and show that our approach produces policies that result in stable and…
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…