Related papers: SoFFT: Spatial Fourier Transform for Modeling Cont…
The paper presents a constraint-based collision model for Cosserat rods, able to handle dynamic or static contact between a large number of highly flexible structures. The model provides the required collision impulses prior to updating the…
Deformable object manipulation (DOM) for robots has a wide range of applications in various fields such as industrial, service and health care sectors. However, compared to manipulation of rigid objects, DOM poses significant challenges for…
Due to their ability to move without sliding relative to their environment, soft growing robots are attractive for deploying distributed sensor networks in confined spaces. Sensing of the state of such robots would also add to their…
Continuum robots are typically slender and flexible with infinite freedoms in theory, which poses a challenge for their control and application. The shape sensing of continuum robots is vital to realise accuracy control. This letter…
Soft robots are naturally designed to perform safe interactions with their environment, like locomotion and manipulation. In the literature, there are now many concepts, often bio-inspired, to propose new modes of locomotion or grasping.…
Although strain-based models have been widely adopted in robotics, no comparison beyond the uniform bending test is commonly recognized to assess their performance. In addition, the increasing effort in prototyping continuum robots…
Inspired by the multiple-exposure fusion approach in computational photography, recently, several practitioners have explored the idea of high dynamic range (HDR) X-ray imaging and tomography. While establishing promising results, these…
In this review we introduce the framework of reality-assisted evolution to summarize a growing trend towards combining model-based and model-free approaches to improve the design of physically embodied soft robots. In silico, data-driven…
This article deals with the mathematical derivation and the validation over benchmark examples of a numerical method for the solution of a finite-strain holonomic (rate-independent) Cosserat plasticity problem for materials, possibly with…
This work proposes a novel transformation termed the conformal navigation transformation to achieve collision-free navigation of a robot in a workspace populated with arbitrary polygonal obstacles. The properties of the conformal navigation…
Continuum arms, such as trunk and tentacle robots, lie between the two extremities of rigid and soft robots and promise to capture the best of both worlds in terms of manipulability, dexterity, and compliance. This paper proposes a new…
This paper introduces a novel deep learning-based multimodal fusion architecture aimed at enhancing the perception capabilities of autonomous navigation robots in complex environments. By utilizing innovative feature extraction modules,…
Due to their compliant structure, industrial robots without precision-enhancing measures are only to a limited extent suitable for machining applications. Apart from structural, thermal and bearing deformations, the main cause for compliant…
I discuss the nature of a Fractional Discrete Fourier Transform (FrDFT) described algorithmically by a combination of chirp transforms and ordinary DFTs. The transform is shown to be consistent with a continuous two-dimensional rotation…
Robotic manipulation of slender objects is challenging, especially when the induced deformations are large and nonlinear. Traditionally, learning-based control approaches, such as imitation learning, have been used to address deformable…
Vision foundation models trained on massive amounts of visual data have shown unprecedented reasoning and planning skills in open-world settings. A key challenge in applying them to robotic tasks is the modality gap between visual data and…
The recent rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), powered by Transformer networks, has achieved remarkable success in natural language processing, computer vision, and graphics. However, the application of Transformers in…
Despite the recent success of modern imitation learning methods in robot manipulation, their performance is often constrained by geometric variations due to limited data diversity. Leveraging powerful 3D generative models and vision…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
The ability of a soft robot to perform specific tasks is determined by its contact configuration, and transitioning between configurations is often necessary to reach a desired position or manipulate an object. Based on this observation, we…