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Contraction metrics are crucial in control theory because they provide a powerful framework for analyzing stability, robustness, and convergence of various dynamical systems. However, identifying these metrics for complex nonlinear systems…
A fundamental challenge in learning to control an unknown dynamical system is to reduce model uncertainty by making measurements while maintaining safety. In this work, we formulate a mathematical definition of what it means to safely learn…
The growing scale and complexity of safety-critical control systems underscore the need to evolve current control architectures aiming for the unparalleled performances achievable through state-of-the-art optimization and machine learning…
Encrypted dynamic controllers that operate for an unlimited time have been a challenging subject of research. The fundamental difficulty is the accumulation of errors and scaling factors in the internal state during operation.…
The suspension system is a crucial part of the automotive chassis, improving vehicle ride comfort and isolating passengers from rough road excitation. Unlike passive suspension, which has constant spring and damping coefficients, active…
This paper presents an optimal dynamic control framework for bounded Jacobian nonlinear discrete-time (DT) systems with nonlinear observations affected by both state and process noise. Rather than directly stabilizing the uncertain system,…
In this paper, the notion of contraction is used to solve the trajectory-tracking problem for a class of mechanical systems. Additionally, we propose a dynamic extension to remove velocity measurements from the controller while rejecting…
Self-driving vehicles (SDVs) hold great potential for improving traffic safety and are poised to positively affect the quality of life of millions of people. To unlock this potential one of the critical aspects of the autonomous technology…
Bipedal locomotion skills are challenging to develop. Control strategies often use local linearization of the dynamics in conjunction with reduced-order abstractions to yield tractable solutions. In these model-based control strategies, the…
Semi-active vibration reduction techniques are defined as techniques in which controlled actions do not operate directly on the system's degrees of freedom (as in the case of active vibration control) but on the system's parameters, i.e.,…
Experimental design in field robotics is an adaptive human-in-the-loop decision-making process in which an experimenter learns about system performance and limitations through interactions with a robot in the form of constructed…
The use of robotics in controlled environments has flourished over the last several decades and training robots to perform tasks using control strategies developed from dynamical models of their hardware have proven very effective. However,…
Snake robots have the potential to maneuver through tightly packed and complex environments. One challenge in enabling them to do so is the complexity in determining how to coordinate their many degrees-of-freedom to create purposeful…
Antagonistic artificial muscles can decouple joint torque and stiffness, but contact transients often degrade this independence. We present a unified real-time framework applicable across pneumatic, electrohydraulic, and dielectric…
Passivity is necessary for robots to fluidly collaborate and interact with humans physically. Nevertheless, due to the unconstrained nature of passivity-based impedance control laws, the robot is vulnerable to infeasible and unsafe…
Tensegrity robots, which are composed of compressive elements (rods) and flexible tensile elements (e.g., cables), have a variety of advantages, including flexibility, low weight, and resistance to mechanical impact. Nevertheless, the…
Accurate knowledge of the state variables in a dynamical system is critical for effective control, diagnosis, and supervision, especially when direct measurements of all states are infeasible. This paper presents a novel approach to…
Gradient structured (GS) metals processed by severe plastic deformation techniques can be designed to achieve simultaneously high strength and high ductility. Significant kinematic hardening is key to their excellent strain hardening…
This paper presents a comprehensive study on using deep reinforcement learning (RL) to create dynamic locomotion controllers for bipedal robots. Going beyond focusing on a single locomotion skill, we develop a general control solution that…
This paper expounds the design and control of a new Variable Stiffness Series Elastic Actuator (VSSEA). It is established by employing a modular mechanical design approach that allows us to effectively optimise the stiffness modulation…