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Training robots with reinforcement learning (RL) typically involves heavy interactions with the environment, and the acquired skills are often sensitive to changes in task environments and robot kinematics. Transfer RL aims to leverage…

The vision of creating entirely-soft robots capable of performing complex tasks will be accomplished only when the controllers required for autonomous operation can be fully implemented on soft components. Despite recent advances in…

Mechanical compliance is a key design parameter for dynamic contact-rich manipulation, affecting task success and safety robustness over contact geometry variation. Design of soft robotic structures, such as compliant fingers, requires…

The design of physical compliance -- its location, degree, and structure -- affects robot performance and robustness in contact-rich tasks. While compliance is often used in the robot's joints, flange, or end-effector, this paper proposes…

Industrial robot manipulators are playing a more significant role in modern manufacturing industries. Though peg-in-hole assembly is a common industrial task which has been extensively researched, safely solving complex high precision…

Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…

In Human-Robot Collaboration, the robot operates in a highly dynamic environment. Thus, it is pivotal to guarantee the robust stability of the system during the interaction but also a high flexibility of the robot behavior in order to…

Stiffness variation and real-time position feedback are critical for any robotic system but most importantly for active and wearable devices to interact with the user and environment. Currently, for compact sizes, there is a lack of…

This paper proposes an adaptive modular geometric control framework for robotic manipulators. The proposed methodology decomposes the overall manipulator dynamics into individual modules, enabling the design of local geometric control laws…

In this paper, we present a controller that combines motion generation and control in one loop, to endow robots with reactivity and safety. In particular, we propose a control approach that enables to follow the motion plan of a first order…

We describe size-varying cylindrical particles made from silicone elastomers that can serve as building blocks for robotic granular materials. The particle size variation, which is achieved by inflation, gives rise to changes in stiffness…

Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are widely used in industrial automation to control physical systems. As PLC applications become increasingly complex, ensuring their correctness is crucial. Existing formal verification techniques…

To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity…

Multi-robot systems, particularly mobile manipulators, face challenges in control coordination and dynamic stability when working together. To address this issue, this study proposes MobiDock, a modular self-reconfigurable mobile…

Variable impedance model predictive control (MPC) formulations often treat joint stiffness as an instantaneous decision variable. The resulting feasible set strictly contains the physically realizable set under first-order actuator…

In this work, we introduce an advanced thermo-active variable impedance module which builds upon our previous innovation in thermal-based impedance adjustment for actuation systems. Our initial design harnessed the temperature-responsive,…

This paper presents a novel and scalable screw-theoretic multibody synthesis framework for PDE-based dynamic modeling of serial robotic manipulators with an arbitrary number of flexible links in three-dimensional space. The proposed…

Mechanical metamaterials have continued to offer unprecedented tunability in mechanical properties, but most designs to date have prioritized attaining high stiffness and strength while sacrificing deformability. The emergence of woven…

Recently, several approaches have attempted to combine motion generation and control in one loop to equip robots with reactive behaviors, that cannot be achieved with traditional time-indexed tracking controllers. These approaches however…