Related papers: Pushing Blocks without Fixed Walls via Checkable G…
We investigate the problem of assembling general shapes and patterns in a model in which particles move based on uniform external forces until they encounter an obstacle. While previous work within this model of assembly has focused on…
How can a stack of identical blocks be arranged to extend beyond the edge of a table as far as possible? We consider a generalization of this classic puzzle to blocks that differ in width and mass. Despite the seemingly simple premise, we…
We build a general theory for characterizing the computational complexity of motion planning of robot(s) through a graph of "gadgets", where each gadget has its own state defining a set of allowed traversals which in turn modify the…
In the problem of multi-robot motion planning, a group of robots, placed in a polygonal domain with obstacles, must be moved from their starting positions to a set of target positions. We consider the specific case of unlabeled disc robots…
Pushdown systems (PDSs) are a natural model for sequential programs, but they can fail to accurately represent the way an assembly stack actually operates. Indeed, one may want to access the part of the memory that is below the current…
A well-established theoretical model for modular robots in two dimensions are edge-connected configurations of square modules, which can reconfigure through so-called sliding moves. Dumitrescu and Pach [Graphs and Combinatorics, 2006]…
We consider an interacting particle system on the lattice involving pushing and blocking interactions, called PushASEP, in the presence of a wall at the origin. We show that the invariant measure of this system is equal in distribution to a…
We present a decoupled algorithm for motion planning for a collection of unit-balls moving among polyhedral obstacles in $\mathbb{R}^d$, for any $d \ge 2$. We assume that the robots have revolving areas in the vicinity of their start and…
We consider the model of pushdown vector addition systems with resets. These consist of vector addition systems that have access to a pushdown stack and have instructions to reset counters. For this model, we study the coverability problem.…
Rearranging densely packed tabletop objects is challenging when parallel-gripper picks are infeasible without sufficient clearance around an object. This work studies the problem characteristics for practically motivated settings with…
Planning motions to grasp an object in cluttered and uncertain environments is a challenging task, particularly when a collision-free trajectory does not exist and objects obstructing the way are required to be carefully grasped and moved…
Robotic dexterous manipulation requires continuously reconciling objectives and constraints defined on heterogeneous geometric spaces: a robot controlled on a $\mathbb{R}^7$ configuration manifold may need to track end effector poses on…
Given a reconfigurable system X, such as a robot moving on a grid or a set of particles traversing a graph without colliding, the possible positions of X naturally form a cubical complex S(X). When S(X) is a CAT(0) space, we can explicitly…
We propose a framework enabling mobile manipulators to reliably complete pick-and-place tasks for assembling structures from construction blocks. The picking uses an eye-in-hand visual servoing controller for object tracking with Control…
Precise and flexible cart-pushing is a challenging task for mobile robots. The motion constraints during cart-pushing and the robot's redundancy lead to complex motion planning problems, while variable payloads and disturbances present…
We investigate a variation of the art gallery problem in which a team of mobile guards tries to track an unpredictable intruder in a simply-connected polygonal environment. In this work, we use the deployment strategy for diagonal guards…
Pushing is a simple yet effective skill for robots to interact with and further change the environment. Related work has been mostly focused on utilizing it as a non-prehensile manipulation primitive for a robotic manipulator. However, it…
Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO) poses a challenge for traditional path-planning methods when obstacles block the path, requiring push actions to reach the goal. We propose a framework that enables movability-aware planning to…
Reconfigurable robot swarms are capable of connecting with each other to form complex structures. Current mechanical or magnetic connection mechanisms can be complicated to manufacture, consume high power, have a limited load-bearing…
Games on graphs provide a natural and powerful model for reactive systems. In this paper, we consider generalized reachability objectives, defined as conjunctions of reachability objectives. We first prove that deciding the winner in such…