Related papers: FlyAware: Inertia-Aware Aerial Manipulation via Vi…
Most aerial manipulators use serial rigid-link designs, which results in large forces when initiating contacts during manipulation and could cause flight stability difficulty. This limitation could potentially be improved by the compliance…
Rigid grippers used in existing aerial manipulators require precise positioning to achieve successful grasps and transmit large contact forces that may destabilize the drone. This limits the speed during grasping and prevents "dynamic…
Learning to control robots without requiring engineered models has been a long-term goal, promising diverse and novel applications. Yet, reinforcement learning has only achieved limited impact on real-time robot control due to its high…
Conventional multi-rotors are under-actuated systems, hindering them from independently controlling attitude from position. In this study, we present several distinct configurations that incorporate additional control inputs for…
Inspection for structural properties (surface stiffness and coefficient of restitution) is crucial for understanding and performing aerial manipulations in unknown environments, with little to no prior knowledge on their state.…
This paper presents an expert-guided active-inference-inspired framework for adaptive UAV swarm trajectory planning. The proposed method converts multi-UAV trajectory design from a repeated combinatorial optimization problem into a…
With the goal of increasing the speed and efficiency in robotic dual arm manipulation, a novel control approach is presented that utilizes intentional simultaneous impacts to rapidly grasp objects. This approach uses the time-invariant…
This paper investigates one of the most challenging tasks in dynamic manipulation -- catching large-momentum moving objects. Beyond the realm of quasi-static manipulation, dealing with highly dynamic objects can significantly improve the…
Learning-based controllers have achieved impressive performance in agile quadrotor flight but typically rely on massive training in simulation, necessitating accurate system identification for effective Sim2Real transfer. However, even with…
This paper describes a methodology for learning flight control systems from human demonstrations and interventions while considering the estimated uncertainty in the learned models. The proposed approach uses human demonstrations to train…
Overactuated omnidirectional flying vehicles are capable of generating force and torque in any direction, which is important for applications such as contact-based industrial inspection. This comes at the price of an increase in model…
This paper presents a novel approach for optical flow control of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The task is challenging due to the nonlinearity of optical flow observables. Our proposed Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) control…
One major challenge for autonomous attitude takeover control for on-orbit servicing of spacecraft is that an accurate dynamic motion model of the combined vehicles is highly nonlinear, complex and often costly to identify online, which…
The smart morphing wing aircraft (SMWA) is a highly adaptable platform that can be widely used for intelligent warfare due to its real-time variable structure. The flexible conformal array (FCA) is a vital detection component of SMWA, when…
Grabbing a manoeuvring target using drones is a challenging problem. This paper presents the design, development, and prototyping of a novel aerial manipulator for target interception. It is a single Degree of Freedom (DoF) manipulator with…
In warehouse and manufacturing environments, manipulation platforms are frequently deployed at conveyor belts to perform pick and place tasks. Because objects on the conveyor belts are moving, robots have limited time to pick them up. This…
Compliance is a strong requirement for human-robot interactions. Soft-robots provide an opportunity to cover the lack of compliance in conventional actuation mechanisms, however, the control of them is very challenging given their intrinsic…
We address load-parameter estimation in cooperative aerial transport with time-varying mass and inertia, as in fluid-carrying payloads. Using an intrinsic manifold model of the multi-quadrotor-load dynamics, we combine a geometric tracking…
This paper proposes a novel observer-based controller for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) designed to directly receive measurements from a Vision-Aided Inertial Navigation System (VA-INS) and produce the…
Stable aerial manipulation during dynamic tasks such as object catching, perching, or contact with rigid surfaces necessarily requires compliant behavior, which is often achieved via impedance control. Successful manipulation depends on how…