Related papers: Leveraging three-dimensionality for navigation in …
Despite the growing impact of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) across various industries, most of current available solutions lack for a robust autonomous navigation system to deal with the appearance of obstacles safely. This work presents…
Blindfolded harbor seals are able to use their uniquely shaped whiskers to track vortex wakes left by moving animals and objects that passed by up to 30 seconds earlier; this is an impressive feat as the flow features they detect may have…
Navigation in complex 3D scenarios requires appropriate environment representation for efficient scene understanding and trajectory generation. We propose a highly efficient and extensible global navigation framework based on a tomographic…
Underwater gliders (UGs) have emerged as highly effective unmanned vehicles for ocean exploration. However, their operation in dynamic and complex underwater environments necessitates robust path-planning strategies. Previous studies have…
Gliding offers small fixed-wing UAVs extended endurance and silent operation but requires accurate energy management, especially under wind disturbances and obstacle constraints. Traditional Total Energy Control Systems based controllers…
Quadrotors with the ability to perch on moving inclined surfaces can save energy and extend their travel distance by leveraging ground vehicles. Achieving dynamic perching places high demands on the performance of trajectory planning and…
Driver drowsiness increases crash risk, leading to substantial road trauma each year. Drowsiness detection methods have received considerable attention, but few studies have investigated the implementation of a detection approach on a…
We design and simulate the motion of a new swimmer, the {\it Quadroar}, with three dimensional translation and reorientation capabilities in low Reynolds number conditions. The Quadroar is composed of an $\texttt{I}$-shaped frame whose body…
Fish swim by undulating their bodies. These propulsive motions require coordinated shape changes of a body that interacts with its fluid environment, but the specific shape coordination that leads to robust turning and swimming motions…
This paper describes some preliminary numerical studies using large eddy simulation of full-scale submarine wakes. Submarine wakes are a combination of the wake generated by a smooth slender body and a number of superimposed vortex pairs…
In this paper, a real-time quasi-optimal trajectory planning scheme is employed to guide an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) safely into a funnel-shape stationary docking station. By taking advantage of the direct method of calculus of…
For centuries, khalasi (Gujarati for sailor) have skillfully harnessed ocean currents to navigate vast waters with minimal effort. Emulating this intuition in autonomous systems remains a significant challenge, particularly for Autonomous…
Super-large-scale particle image velocimetry and flow visualization with natural snowfall is used to collect and analyze multiple datasets in the near wake of a 2.5 MW wind turbine. Each dataset captures the full vertical span of the wake…
Transport from nutrient-rich coastal upwellings is a key factor influencing biological activity in surrounding waters and even in the open ocean. The rich upwelling in the North-Western African coast is known to interact strongly with the…
This paper presents an autonomous navigation framework for reaching a goal in unknown 3D cluttered environments. The framework consists of three main components. First, a computationally efficient method for mapping the environment from the…
Zermelo's navigation problem seeks the trajectory of minimal travel time between two points in a fluid flow. We address this problem for an agent -- such as a micro-robot or active particle -- that is advected by a two-dimensional flow,…
We present a novel high-level planning framework that leverages vision-language models (VLMs) to improve autonomous navigation in unknown indoor environments with many dead ends. Traditional exploration methods often take inefficient routes…
Navigation is a fundamental capability for mobile robots. While the current trend is to use learning-based approaches to replace traditional geometry-based methods, existing end-to-end learning-based policies often struggle with 3D spatial…
We propose a robotic learning system for autonomous exploration and navigation in unexplored environments. We are motivated by the idea that even an unseen environment may be familiar from previous experiences in similar environments. The…
Future urban transportation concepts include a mixture of ground and air vehicles with varying degrees of autonomy in a congested environment. In such dynamic environments, occupancy maps alone are not sufficient for safe path planning.…