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Nowadays, robots are expected to interact more physically, cognitively, and socially with people. They should adapt to unpredictable contexts alongside individuals with various behaviours. For this reason, personalisation is a valuable…

Precise kinematic modeling is critical in calibration and controller design for soft robots, yet remains a challenging issue due to their highly nonlinear and complex behaviors. To tackle the issue, numerous data-driven machine learning…

Robot-to-human object handover is an essential skill for robot assistants, from serving drinks at home to passing surgical tools in the operating room. We expect robots to perform handover robustly -- to release the object only after a firm…

When a human and a humanoid robot collaborate physically, ergonomics is a key factor to consider. Assuming a given humanoid robot, several control architectures exist nowadays to address ergonomic physical human-robot collaboration. This…

Designing robots capable of traversing uneven terrain and overcoming physical obstacles has been a longstanding challenge in the field of robotics. Walking robots show promise in this regard due to their agility, redundant DOFs and…

We investigate a method to modulate contact forces between the soft fingers of a two-finger gripper and an object, without relying on tactile sensors. This work is a follow-up to our previous results on contact detection. Here, our…

Interactions between human and objects are influenced not only by the object's pose and shape, but also by physical attributes such as object mass and surface friction. They introduce important motion nuances that are essential for…

The physical interaction of aerial robots with their environment has countless potential applications and is an emerging area with many open challenges. Fully-actuated multirotors have been introduced to tackle some of these challenges.…

Physical interaction between humans and robots can help robots learn to perform complex tasks. The robot arm gains information by observing how the human kinesthetically guides it throughout the task. While prior works focus on how the…

With the advancements in human-robot interaction (HRI), robots are now capable of operating in close proximity and engaging in physical interactions with humans (pHRI). Likewise, contact-based pHRI is becoming increasingly common as robots…

A shared grasp is a grasp formed by contacts between the manipulated object and both the robot hand and the environment. By trading off hand contacts for environmental contacts, a shared grasp requires fewer contacts with the hand, and…

Robotic manipulation of flexible objects is widely required in both industrial and service applications. Among such objects, paper-like materials exhibit distinct mechanical characteristics compared to cloth, being more sensitive to…

Humans can leverage physical interaction to teach robot arms. This physical interaction takes multiple forms depending on the task, the user, and what the robot has learned so far. State-of-the-art approaches focus on learning from a single…

Accurate inertial parameter identification is crucial for the simulation and control of robots encountering intermittent contact with the environment. Classically, robots' inertial parameters are obtained from CAD models that are not…

Personalisation is essential to achieve more acceptable and effective results in human-robot interaction. Placing users in the central role, many studies have focused on enhancing the abilities of social robots to perceive and understand…

We propose a new robotic cover prototype that achieves thermal display while also being soft. We focus on the thermal cue because previous human studies have identified it as part of the touch pleasantness. The robotic cover surface can be…

Accurately modeling local surface properties of objects is crucial to many robotic applications, from grasping to material recognition. Surface properties like friction are however difficult to estimate, as visual observation of the object…

The morphology of a slender soft-robot can be modified by sensing its shape via sensors and exerting moments via actuators embedded along its body. The actuating moments required to morph these soft-robots to a desired shape are often…

Wearable robots are undergoing a disruptive transition, from the rigid machines that populated the science-fiction world in the early eighties to lightweight robotic apparel, hardly distinguishable from our daily clothes. In less than a…

Human-robot interaction will play an essential role in various industries and daily tasks, enabling robots to effectively collaborate with humans and reduce their physical workload. Most of the existing approaches for physical human-robot…