Related papers: Parallel Simulation of Contact and Actuation for S…
This paper addresses a safe planning and control problem for mobile robots operating in communication- and sensor-limited dynamic environments. In this case the robots cannot sense the objects around them and must instead rely on…
Robotics simulation provides many advantages during the development of an intelligent ground vehicle (IGV) such as testing the software components in varying scenarios without requiring a complete physical robot. This paper discusses a 3D…
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…
High-fidelity physics simulation is essential for scalable robotic learning, but the sim-to-real gap persists, especially for tasks involving complex, dynamic, and discontinuous interactions like physical contacts. Explicit system…
Soft robots are typically approximated as low-dimensional systems, especially when learning-based methods are used. This leads to models that are limited in their capability to predict the large number of deformation modes and interactions…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
We propose a novel fast and accurate simulation framework for contact-intensive tight-tolerance robotic assembly tasks. The key components of our framework are as follows: 1) data-driven contact point clustering with a certain…
The integration of collaborative robots into industrial environments has improved productivity, but has also highlighted significant challenges related to operator safety and ergonomics. This paper proposes an innovative framework that…
Many robots are not equipped with a manipulator and many objects are not suitable for prehensile manipulation (such as large boxes and cylinders). In these cases, pushing is a simple yet effective non-prehensile skill for robots to interact…
Soft robots were introduced in large part to enable safe, adaptive interaction with the environment, and this interaction relies fundamentally on contact. However, modeling and planning contact-rich interactions for soft robots remain…
In this work, we present a hybrid simulator for space docking and robotic proximity operations methodology. This methodology also allows for the emulation of a target robot operating in a complex environment by using an actual robot. The…
Shape change enables new capabilities for robots. One class of robots capable of dramatic shape change is soft growing "vine" robots. These robots usually feature global actuation methods for bending that limit them to simple,…
Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…
Soft robots offer unmatched adaptability and safety in unstructured environments, yet their compliant, high-dimensional, and nonlinear dynamics make modeling for control notoriously difficult. Existing data-driven approaches often fail to…
Magnetic rolling microrobots enable gentle manipulation in confined microfluidic environments, yet autonomy for contact-rich behaviors such as cell pushing and multi-target assembly remains difficult to develop and evaluate reproducibly. We…
In this review we introduce the framework of reality-assisted evolution to summarize a growing trend towards combining model-based and model-free approaches to improve the design of physically embodied soft robots. In silico, data-driven…
Pneumatically operated soft growing robots that extend via tip eversion are well-suited for navigation in confined spaces. Adding the ability to interact with the environment using sensors and tools attached to the robot tip would greatly…
Soft, tip-extending vine robots are well suited for navigating tight, debris-filled environments, making them ideal for urban search and rescue. Sensing the full shape of a vine robot's body is helpful both for localizing information from…
Humanoid robots rely on multi-contact planners to navigate a diverse set of environments, including those that are unstructured and highly constrained. To synthesize stable multi-contact plans within a reasonable time frame, most planners…
Robotic fabric manipulation is challenging due to the infinite dimensional configuration space, self-occlusion, and complex dynamics of fabrics. There has been significant prior work on learning policies for specific deformable manipulation…