Related papers: Flying Vines: Design, Modeling, and Control of a S…
Flying manipulators are aerial drones with attached rigid-bodied robotic arms and belong to the latest and most actively developed research areas in robotics. The rigid nature of these arms often lack compliance, flexibility, and smoothness…
Aerial manipulators, composed of multirotors and robotic arms, have a structure and function highly reminiscent of avian species. This paper studies the tracking control problem for aerial manipulators. This paper studies the tracking…
Robot performance has advanced considerably both in and out of the factory, however in tightly constrained, unknown environments such as inside a jet engine or the human heart, current robots are less adept. In such cases where a borescope…
Soft growing robots, commonly referred to as vine robots, have demonstrated remarkable ability to interact safely and robustly with unstructured and dynamic environments. It is therefore natural to exploit contact with the environment for…
Simulating soft robots in cluttered environments remains an open problem due to the challenge of capturing complex dynamics and interactions with the environment. Furthermore, fast simulation is desired for quickly exploring robot behaviors…
Everting, soft growing vine robots benefit from reduced friction with their environment, which allows them to navigate challenging terrain. Vine robots can use air pouches attached to their sides for lateral steering. However, when all…
Soft pneumatic actuators are used to steer soft growing "vine" robots while being flexible enough to undergo the tip eversion required for growth. In this study, we compared the performance of three types of pneumatic actuators in terms of…
Aerial manipulators, which combine robotic arms with multi-rotor drones, face strict constraints on arm weight and mechanical complexity. In this work, we study a lightweight 2-degree-of-freedom (DoF) arm mounted on a quadrotor via a…
Contrary to the stunning feats observed in birds of prey, aerial manipulation and grasping with flying robots still lack versatility and agility. Conventional approaches using rigid manipulators require precise positioning and are subject…
Vine robots are a class of soft continuum robots that grow via tip eversion, allowing them to move their tip without relying on reaction forces from the environment. Constructed from compliant materials such as fabric and thin, flexible…
This paper explores the concept of external magnetic control for vine robots to enable their high curvature steering and navigation for use in endoluminal applications. Vine robots, inspired by natural growth and locomotion strategies,…
The ability to enter in contact with and manipulate physical objects with a flying robot enables many novel applications, such as contact inspection, painting, drilling, and sample collection. Generally, these aerial robots need more…
Aerial manipulation has recently attracted increasing interest from both industry and academia. Previous approaches have demonstrated success in various specific tasks. However, their hardware design and control frameworks are often tightly…
Rigid grippers used in existing aerial manipulators require precise positioning to achieve successful grasps and transmit large contact forces that may destabilize the drone. This limits the speed during grasping and prevents "dynamic…
Manipulation and grasping with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) currently require accurate positioning and are often executed at reduced speed to ensure successful grasps. This is due to the fact that typical UAVs can only accommodate rigid…
Visual active tracking is a growing research topic in robotics due to its key role in applications such as human assistance, disaster recovery, and surveillance. In contrast to passive tracking, active tracking approaches combine vision and…
Tree fruit growers around the world are facing labor shortages for critical operations, including harvest and pruning. There is a great interest in developing robotic solutions for these labor-intensive tasks, but current efforts have been…
Aerial manipulation aims at combining the manoeuvrability of aerial vehicles with the manipulation capabilities of robotic arms. This, however, comes at the cost of the additional control complexity due to the coupling of the dynamics of…
In this paper, we present the design, simulation and experimental validation of a control architecture for a flying hand, i.e., a system made of an unmanned aerial vehicle, a robotic manipulator and a gripper, which is grasping an object…
Soft, vine-inspired growing robots that move by eversion are highly mobile in confined environments, but, when faced with gaps in the environment, they may collapse under their own weight while navigating a desired path. In this work, we…