Related papers: Balancing a vertical stick on a stochastically dri…
Understanding how humans control unstable systems is central to many research problems, with applications ranging from quiet standing to aircraft landing. Increasingly much evidence appears in favor of event-driven control hypothesis: human…
We study from a statistical physics perspective the dynamics of a bouncing ball maintained in a chaotic regime thanks to collisions with a plate experiencing an aperiodic vibration. We analyze in details the energy exchanges between the…
We investigate the conditions leading to large drag force fluctuations in granular materials. The study is based on a set of experimental drag tests, which involve pulling a plate vertically through a cohesionless granular material. In…
In this talk I will introduce the principle of stochastic stability and discussing its consequences both at equilibrium and off-equilibrium.
Planar sliding of objects is modeled and analyzed. The model can be used for non-prehensile manipulation of objects lying on a surface. We study possible motions generated by frictional contacts, such as those arising between a soft finger…
This article studies the dynamics and control of a novel underactuated system, wherein a plate suspended by cables and with a freely moving mass on top, whose other ends are attached to three quadrotors, is sought to be horizontally…
The elastocapillary instability of a flexible plate plunged in a liquid bath is analysed theoretically. We show that the plate can bend due to two separate destabilizing mechanisms, when the liquid is partially wetting the solid. For…
We study the spectrum of non-homogeneous partially hinged plates having structural engineering applications. A possible way to prevent instability phenomena is to maximize the ratio between the frequencies of certain oscillating modes with…
This paper presents an approach to in-hand manipulation planning that exploits the mechanics of alternating sticking contact. Particularly, we consider the problem of manipulating a grasped object using external pushes for which the pusher…
Based on the convex force-motion polynomial model for quasi-static sliding, we derive the kinematic contact model to determine the contact modes and instantaneous object motion on a supporting surface given a position controlled…
We discuss the stick-slip motion of an elastic block sliding along a rigid substrate. We argue that for a given external shear stress this system shows a discontinuous nonequilibrium transition from a uniform stick state to uniform sliding…
Continuum robotic grasping, inspired by biological appendages such as octopus arms and elephant trunks, provides a versatile and adaptive approach to object manipulation. Unlike conventional rigid-body grasping, continuum robots leverage…
We develop a martingale approach for studying continuous-time stochastic differential games of control and stopping, in a non-Markovian framework and with the control affecting only the drift term of the state-process. Under appropriate…
The dynamics of an oscillated sessile drop of incompressible liquid with the focus on the contact line hysteresis is under theoretical consideration. The solid substrate is subject to transverse oscillations, which are assumed small…
Precise perception of contact interactions is essential for fine-grained manipulation skills for robots. In this paper, we present the design of feedback skills for robots that must learn to stack complex-shaped objects on top of each other…
Juggling a devil-stick can be described as a problem of non-prehensile manipulation. Assuming that the devil-stick remains confined to the vertical plane, the problem of juggling the stick between two symmetric configurations is considered.…
In this paper we consider a viscoelastic plate (linear viscoelasticity of the Maxwell-Boltzmann type) and we compare its controllability properties with the (known) controllability of a purely elastic plate (the control acts on the boundary…
We study optimization problems for partially hinged rectangular plates, modeling bridge roadways, in the presence of real and artificial obstacles. Real obstacles represent structural constraints to avoid, while artificial ones are…
We study the effect of viscoelastic dynamics on the frictional properties of a (mean field) spring-block system pulled on a rough surface by an external drive. When the drive moves at constant velocity V, two dynamical regimes are observed:…
In this work, we analyse the stick-slip motion of a soft elastomeric block on a smooth, hard surface under the application of shear, which is induced by a puller moving at a steady velocity. The frictional stress is generated by make-break…