Related papers: Self-Sensing for Proprioception and Contact Detect…
Distributed sensor arrays capable of detecting multiple spatially distributed stimuli are considered an important element in the realisation of exteroceptive and proprioceptive soft robots. This paper expands upon the previously presented…
We present a tactile sensing method enabled by the mechanical compliance of soft robots; an externally attachable photoreflective module reads surface deformation of silicone skin to estimate contact force without embedding tactile…
Dexterous manipulation of objects through fine control of physical contacts is essential for many important tasks of daily living. A fundamental ability underlying fine contact control is compliant control, \textit{i.e.}, controlling the…
In this paper, we present an accelerometer-based kinematic calibration algorithm to accurately estimate the pose of multiple sensor units distributed along a robot body. Our approach is self-contained, can be used on any robot provided with…
Navigating in off-road environments for wheeled mobile robots is challenging due to dynamic and rugged terrain. Traditional physics-based stability metrics, such as Static Stability Margin (SSM) or Zero Moment Point (ZMP) require knowledge…
This article describes a new way of controlling robots using soft tactile sensors: pose-based tactile servo (PBTS) control. The basic idea is to embed a tactile perception model for estimating the sensor pose within a servo control loop…
The number and arrangement of sensors on mobile robot dramatically influence its perception capabilities. Ensuring that sensors are mounted in a manner that enables accurate detection, localization, and mapping is essential for the success…
Force and proximity sensors are key in robotics, especially when applied in collaborative robots that interact physically or cognitively with humans in real unstructured environments. However, most existing sensors for use in robotics are…
Purpose of Review: The field of humanoid robotics, perception plays a fundamental role in enabling robots to interact seamlessly with humans and their surroundings, leading to improved safety, efficiency, and user experience. This…
Lifting objects, whose mass may produce high wrist torques that exceed the hardware strength limits, could lead to unstable grasps or serious robot damage. This work introduces a new Center-of-Mass (CoM)-based grasp pose adaptation method,…
Although soft robots show safer interactions with their environment than traditional robots, soft mechanisms and actuators still have significant potential for damage or degradation particularly during unmodeled contact. This article…
Monocular depth estimation (MDE) provides a useful tool for robotic perception, but its predictions are often uncertain and inaccurate in challenging environments such as surgical scenes where textureless surfaces, specular reflections, and…
Contact-rich manipulation is difficult for robots to execute and requires accurate perception of the environment. In some scenarios, vision is occluded. The robot can then no longer obtain real-time scene state information through visual…
In this paper, we explore whether a robot can learn to hang arbitrary objects onto a diverse set of supporting items such as racks or hooks. Endowing robots with such an ability has applications in many domains such as domestic services,…
Collaborative robots offer increased interaction capabilities at relatively low cost but in contrast to their industrial counterparts they inevitably lack precision. Moreover, in addition to the robots' own imperfect models, day-to-day…
Magnetic microrobots can be navigated by an external magnetic field to autonomously move within living organisms with complex and unstructured environments. Potential applications include drug delivery, diagnostics, and therapeutic…
Simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) is the problem of autonomous robots to construct or update a map of an undetermined unstructured environment while simultaneously estimate the pose in it. The current trend towards self-driving…
Robots have been brought to work close to humans in many scenarios. For coexistence and collaboration, robots should be safe and pleasant for humans to interact with. To this end, the robots could be both physically soft with multimodal…
Soft robots could bring robotic systems to new horizons, by enabling safe human-machine interaction. For precise control, these soft structures require high level position feedback that is not easily achieved through conventional…
Proximity perception is a technology that has the potential to play an essential role in the future of robotics. It can fulfill the promise of safe, robust, and autonomous systems in industry and everyday life, alongside humans, as well as…