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In this work, we present a pragmatic approach to enable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) to autonomously perform highly complicated tasks of object pick and place. This paper is largely inspired by challenge-2 of MBZIRC 2020 and is primarily…
Many robotic path planning problems are continuous, stochastic, and high-dimensional. The ability of a mobile manipulator to coordinate its base and manipulator in order to control its whole-body online is particularly challenging when self…
Dynamic quadruped locomotion over challenging terrains with precise foot placements is a hard problem for both optimal control methods and Reinforcement Learning (RL). Non-linear solvers can produce coordinated constraint satisfying…
We present a control method for improved repetitive path following for a ground vehicle that is geared towards long-term operation where the operating conditions can change over time and are initially unknown. We use weighted Bayesian…
Understanding physical phenomena is a key competence that enables humans and animals to act and interact under uncertain perception in previously unseen environments containing novel objects and their configurations. Developmental…
Automating the manipulation of granular materials poses significant challenges due to complex contact dynamics, unpredictable material properties, and intricate system states. Existing approaches often fail to achieve efficiency and…
Grasping has long been considered an important and practical task in robotic manipulation. Yet achieving robust and efficient grasps of diverse objects is challenging, since it involves gripper design, perception, control and learning, etc.…
Legged robots must exhibit robust and agile locomotion across diverse, unstructured terrains, a challenge exacerbated under blind locomotion settings where terrain information is unavailable. This work introduces a hierarchical…
Tool use is an important milestone in the evolution of intelligence. In this paper, we investigate different modes of tool use that emerge in a reaching and dragging task. In this task, a jointed arm with a gripper must grab a tool (T, I,…
Pedipulation leverages the feet of legged robots for mobile manipulation, eliminating the need for dedicated robotic arms. While previous works have showcased blind and task-specific pedipulation skills, they fail to account for static and…
This paper introduces a learning-based low-level controller for quadcopters, which adaptively controls quadcopters with significant variations in mass, size, and actuator capabilities. Our approach leverages a combination of imitation…
3D Object Detectors (3D-OD) are crucial for understanding the environment in many robotic tasks, especially autonomous driving. Including 3D information via Lidar sensors improves accuracy greatly. However, such detectors perform poorly on…
Catching objects in flight (i.e., thrown objects) is a common daily skill for humans, yet it presents a significant challenge for robots. This task requires a robot with agile and accurate motion, a large spatial workspace, and the ability…
This paper presents an integrated system for performing precision harvesting missions using a legged harvester. Our harvester performs a challenging task of autonomous navigation and tree grabbing in a confined, GPS denied forest…
Close and precise placement of irregularly shaped objects requires a skilled robotic system. The manipulation of objects that have sensitive top surfaces and a fixed set of neighbors is particularly challenging. To avoid damaging the…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has shown great potential in enabling quadruped robots to perform agile locomotion. However, directly training policies to simultaneously handle dual extreme challenges, i.e., extreme underactuation and extreme…
Autonomous highway driving, especially for long-haul heavy trucks, requires detecting objects at long ranges beyond 500 meters to satisfy braking distance requirements at high speeds. At long distances, vehicles and other critical objects…
We consider the problem of grasping deformable objects with soft shells using a robotic gripper. Such objects have a center-of-mass that changes dynamically and are fragile so prone to burst. Thus, it is difficult for robots to generate…
This paper presents SCALER, a versatile free-climbing multi-limbed robot that is designed to achieve tightly coupled simultaneous locomotion and dexterous grasping. While existing quadrupedal-limbed robots have demonstrated impressive…
We study the problem of robotic stacking with objects of complex geometry. We propose a challenging and diverse set of such objects that was carefully designed to require strategies beyond a simple "pick-and-place" solution. Our method is a…