Related papers: SCCRUB: Surface Cleaning Compliant Robot Utilizing…
We present in-hand manipulation tasks where a robot moves an object in grasp, maintains its external contact mode with the environment, and adjusts its in-hand pose simultaneously. The proposed manipulation task leads to complex contact…
Snake robots are characterized by their ability to navigate through small spaces and loose terrain by utilizing efficient cyclic forms of locomotion. Soft snake robots are a subset of these robots which utilize soft, compliant actuators to…
Machine learning techniques have enabled robots to learn narrow, yet complex tasks and also perform broad, yet simple skills with a wide variety of objects. However, learning a model that can both perform complex tasks and generalize to…
With the presence of robots increasing in the society, the need for interacting with robots is becoming necessary. The field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has emerged important since more repetitive and tiresome jobs are being done by…
Fine manipulation tasks, such as threading cable ties or slotting a battery, are notoriously difficult for robots because they require precision, careful coordination of contact forces, and closed-loop visual feedback. Performing these…
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…
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…
Pneumatic soft everting robotic structures have the potential to facilitate human transfer tasks due to their ability to grow underneath humans without sliding friction and their utility as a flexible sling when deflated. Tubular structures…
Robots operating in everyday environments must navigate and manipulate within densely cluttered spaces, where physical contact with surrounding objects is unavoidable. Traditional safety frameworks treat contact as unsafe, restricting…
This paper provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art in selective harvesting robots (SHRs) and their potential for addressing the challenges of global food production. SHRs have the potential to increase productivity, reduce…
Casting manipulation has been studied to expand the robot's movable range. In this manipulation, the robot throws and reaches the end effector to a distant target. Usually, a special casting manipulator, which consists of rigid arm links…
Climbing Robots are being developed for applications ranging from cleaning to the inspection of difficult to reach constructions. Climbing robots should be capable of carrying a light payload and climbing on vertical surfaces with ability…
This paper proposes a novel robotic hand design for assembly tasks. The idea is to combine two simple grippers -- an inner gripper which is used for precise alignment, and an outer gripper which is used for stable holding. Conventional…
This paper presents a design methodology of a hydraulically-driven soft robotic gripper for grasping a large and heavy object -- approximately 10 - 20 kg with 20 - 30 cm diameter. Most existing soft grippers are pneumatically actuated with…
Soft robotic grippers are shown to be high effective for grasping unstructured objects with simple sensing and control strategies. However, they are still limited by their speed, sensing capabilities and actuation mechanism. Hence, their…
Legged robots have the potential to become vital in maintenance, home support, and exploration scenarios. In order to interact with and manipulate their environments, most legged robots are equipped with a dedicated robot arm, which means…
Gripping and holding of objects are key tasks for robotic manipulators. The development of universal grippers able to pick up unfamiliar objects of widely varying shape and surface properties remains, however, challenging. Most current…
We present controllers that enable mobile robots to persistently monitor or sweep a changing environment. The changing environment is modeled as a field which grows in locations that are not within range of a robot, and decreases in…
Soft robots, in contrast to their rigid counter parts, have infinite degrees of freedom that are coupled with their interaction with the environment. We consider the locomotion of an untethered robot, in the granular medium, comprised of…
We show that a purely tactile dextrous in-hand manipulation task with continuous regrasping, requiring permanent force closure, can be learned from scratch and executed robustly on a torque-controlled humanoid robotic hand. The task is…