Related papers: Topology-Inspired Morphological Descriptor for Sof…
Optimizing the body and brain of a robot is a coupled challenge: the morphology determines what control strategies are effective, while the control parameters influence how well the morphology performs. This joint optimization can be done…
High-performance closed-loop control of truly soft continuum manipulators has remained elusive. Experimental demonstrations have largely relied on sufficiently stiff, piecewise architectures in which each actuated segment behaves as a…
Three-dimensional shape sensing in soft and continuum robotics is a crucial aspect for stable actuation and control in fields such as Minimally Invasive surgery, as the estimation of complex curvatures while using continuum robotic tools is…
Soft robots are well suited for contact-rich tasks due to their compliance, yet this property makes accurate and tractable modeling challenging. Planning motions with dynamically-feasible trajectories requires models that capture arbitrary…
Though high-performance computing enables high-fidelity simulations of complex engineering systems, accurately resolving multi-scale physics for real-world problems remains computationally prohibitive, particularly in many-query…
We present a graph theory-based method to characterise flow defects and structural shifts in condensed matter. We explore the connection between dynamical properties, particularly the recently introduced concept of ''softness'', and…
Robots' behavior and performance are determined both by hardware and software. The design process of robotic systems is a complex journey that involves multiple phases. Throughout this process, the aim is to tackle various criteria…
Continuum robots can be miniaturized to just a few millimeters in diameter. Among these, notched tubular continuum robots (NTCR) show great potential in many delicate applications. Existing works in robotic modeling focus on kinematics and…
Inferring physical properties can significantly enhance robotic manipulation by enabling robots to handle objects safely and efficiently through adaptive grasping strategies. Previous approaches have typically relied on either tactile or…
Parametric high-fidelity simulations are of interest for a wide range of applications. But the restriction of computational resources renders such models to be inapplicable in a real-time context or in multi-query scenarios. Model order…
Formal verification of robotic tasks requires a simple yet conformant model of the used robot. We present the first work on generating reachset conformant models for robotic contact tasks considering hybrid (mixed continuous and discrete)…
In this paper, we present a novel synergistic framework for learning shape estimation and a shape-aware whole-body control policy for tendon-driven continuum robots. Our approach leverages the interaction between two Augmented Neural…
Active soft bodies can affect their shape through an internal actuation mechanism that induces a deformation. Similar to recent work, this paper utilizes a differentiable, quasi-static, and physics-based simulation layer to optimize for…
The aim of this article is to introduce a new methodology for constructing morphings between shapes that have identical topology. The morphings are obtained by deforming a reference shape, through the resolution of a sequence of linear…
In continuum robotics, real-time robust shape estimation is crucial for planning and control tasks that involve physical manipulation in complex environments. In this paper, we present a novel stochastic observer-based shape estimation…
Sparse systems are usually parameterized by a tuning parameter that determines the sparsity of the system. How to choose the right tuning parameter is a fundamental and difficult problem in learning the sparse system. In this paper, by…
This paper introduces a general Lie group framework for modeling continuum soft robots, employing Cosserat rod theory combined with cumulative parameterization on the Lie group SE(3). This novel approach addresses limitations present in…
In the present paper, an integrated paradigm for topology optimization on complex surfaces with arbitrary genus is proposed. The approach is constructed based on the two-dimensional (2D) Moving Morphable Component (MMC) framework, where a…
Simulation modeling of robots, objects, and environments is the backbone for all model-based control and learning. It is leveraged broadly across dynamic programming and model-predictive control, as well as data generation for imitation,…
This paper is concerned with the problem of estimating (interpolating and smoothing) the shape (pose and the six modes of deformation) of a slender flexible body from multiple camera measurements. This problem is important in both biology,…