Related papers: A Unified Complementarity-based Approach for Rigid…
While motion planning of locomotion for legged robots has shown great success, motion planning for legged robots with dexterous multi-finger grasping is not mature yet. We present an efficient motion planning framework for simultaneously…
This paper presents a novel contact-implicit trajectory optimization method using an analytically solvable contact model to enable planning of interactions with hard, soft, and slippery environments. Specifically, we propose a novel contact…
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…
Glovebox decommissioning tasks usually require manipulating relatively heavy objects in a highly constrained environment. Thus, contact with the surroundings becomes inevitable. In order to allow the robot to interact with the environment…
We present in-hand manipulation tasks where a robot moves an object in grasp, maintains its external contact mode with the environment, and adjusts its in-hand pose simultaneously. The proposed manipulation task leads to complex contact…
This work addresses the challenge of a robot using real-time feedback from contact sensors to reliably manipulate a movable object on a cluttered tabletop. We formulate contact manipulation as a partially observable Markov decision process…
This paper considers the integration of rigid cooperative manipulation with rigidity theory. Motivated by rigid models of cooperative manipulation systems, i.e., where the grasping contacts are rigid, we introduce first the notion of…
In this work, we consider a group of robots working together to manipulate a rigid object to track a desired trajectory in $SE(3)$. The robots do not know the mass or friction properties of the object, or where they are attached to the…
Robots often face manipulation tasks in environments where vision is inadequate due to clutter, occlusions, or poor lighting--for example, reaching a shutoff valve at the back of a sink cabinet or locating a light switch above a crowded…
This paper presents a novel feedback method on the motion planning for unicycle robots in environments with static obstacles, along with an extension to the distributed planning and coordination in multi-robot systems. The method employs a…
Geometric mechanics provides valuable insights into how biological and robotic systems use changes in shape to move by mechanically interacting with their environment. In high-friction environments it provides that the entire interaction is…
Previous humanoid robot research works treat the robot as a bipedal mobile manipulation platform, where only the feet and hands contact the environment. However, we humans use all body parts to interact with the world, e.g., we sit in…
Underactuated robots are characterized by a larger number of degrees of freedom than actuators and if they are designed with a specific mass distribution, they can be controlled by means of differential flatness theory. This structural…
In this paper, we address the challenge of performing non-prehensile pushing operations with a compliant robotic manipulation system. To ensure safe operations in human-populated environments, robots must comply with external physical…
Fluidically actuated soft robots have promising capabilities such as inherent compliance and user safety. The control of soft robots needs to properly handle nonlinear actuation dynamics, motion constraints, workspace limitations, and…
Robots hold great promise for performing repetitive or hazardous tasks, but achieving human-like dexterity, especially in contact-rich and dynamic environments, remains challenging. Rigid robots, which rely on position or velocity control,…
A novel approach is presented for computing flexible body dynamics based on conventional structural dynamics models. This approach innovatively captures the rigid body motion component embedded within a flexible body's movement, generates…
Based on the convex force-motion polynomial model for quasi-static sliding, we derive the kinematic contact model to determine the contact modes and instantaneous object motion on a supporting surface given a position controlled…
A framework for performing event-driven, adaptive time step simulations of systems of rigid bodies interacting under stepped or terraced potentials in which the potential energy is only allowed to have discrete values is outlined. The…
This paper presents a reactive controller for planar manipulation tasks that leverages machine learning to achieve real-time performance. The approach is based on a Model Predictive Control (MPC) formulation, where the goal is to find an…