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Long-term Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is crucial for enabling flexible manufacturing systems and integrating companion robots into daily human environments over extended periods. This paper identifies several key challenges for such…
To enable flexible, high-throughput automation in settings where people and robots share workspaces, collaborative robotic cells must reconcile stringent safety guarantees with the need for responsive and effective behavior. A dynamic…
This research is concerned with the novel application and investigation of `Soft Actor Critic' (SAC) based Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to control the cooling setpoint (and hence cooling loads) of a large commercial building to harness…
Robots are finding new applications where physical interaction with a human is necessary: manufacturing, healthcare, and social tasks. Accordingly, the field of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) has leveraged impedance control…
Quadruped robots are designed to achieve agile and robust locomotion by drawing inspiration from legged animals. However, most existing control methods for quadruped robots lack a key capacity observed in animals: the ability to exhibit…
We study the adaptability of deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based active flow control (AFC) technology for bluff body flows with complex geometries. It is extended from a cylinder with an aspect ratio $Ar = 1$ to a flat elliptical…
Safe physical interaction is critical for deploying robotic manipulators in human-robot interaction and contact-rich tasks, where uncertainty, external forces, and actuator limitations can compromise both performance and safety. We propose…
Marine robots must maintain precise control and ensure safety during tasks like ocean monitoring, even when encountering unpredictable disturbances that affect performance. Designing algorithms for uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) requires…
Parallel robots provide the potential to be leveraged for human-robot collaboration (HRC) due to low collision energies even at high speeds resulting from their reduced moving masses. However, the risk of unintended contact with the leg…
Medical robotics can help improve and extend the reach of healthcare services. A major challenge for medical robots is the complex physical interaction between the robot and the patients which is required to be safe. This work presents the…
Fluidically actuated soft robots have promising capabilities such as inherent compliance and user safety. The control of soft robots needs to properly handle nonlinear actuation dynamics, motion constraints, workspace limitations, and…
In multi-point contact systems, precise force control is crucial for achieving stable and safe interactions between robots and their environment. Thus, we demonstrate an admittance controller with auto-tuning that can be applied for these…
Bolting operations are critical in industrial assembly and in the maintenance of scientific facilities, requiring high precision and robustness to faults. Although robotic solutions have the potential to improve operational safety and…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
Despite recent remarkable achievements in quadruped control, it remains challenging to ensure robust and compliant locomotion in the presence of unforeseen external disturbances. Existing methods prioritize locomotion robustness over…
Generally, humanoid robots usually suffer significant impact force when walking or running in a non-predefined environment that could easily damage the actuators due to high stiffness. In recent years, the usages of passive, compliant…
Robotic systems operating in unstructured environments require the ability to switch between compliant and rigid states to perform diverse tasks such as adaptive grasping, high-force manipulation, shape holding, and navigation in…
Precise and high-fidelity force control is critical for new generations of robots that interact with humans and unknown environments. Mobile robots, such as wearable devices and legged robots, must also be lightweight to accomplish their…
The rapid growth of large data center loads and inverter-based generation is increasing the stress on transmission networks, while expanding grid capacity at the required pace remains challenging. Power flow controllers (PFCs) that adjust…
Force control in hydraulic actuators is notoriously difficult due to strong nonlinearities, uncertainties, and the high risks associated with unsafe exploration during learning. This paper investigates safe reinforcement learning (RL) for…