Related papers: Design and Control of Modular Magnetic Millirobots…
Robotic mobility in microgravity is necessary to expand human utilization and exploration of outer space. Bio-inspired multi-legged robots are a possible solution for safe and precise locomotion. However, a dynamic motion of a robot in…
We present a modular framework for solving a motion planning problem among a group of robots. The proposed framework utilizes a finite set of low level motion primitives to generate motions in a gridded workspace. The constraints on…
This paper presents a contact-based micromanipulation system for the alignment and installment of microscale magnets into micro robots and devices. Affixing tweezers to a three degree of freedom micromanipulator allows for precise movement…
Collapsing terrains, often present in search and rescue missions or planetary exploration, pose significant challenges for quadruped robots. This paper introduces a robust locomotion framework for safe navigation over unstable surfaces by…
Modular robots can be reconfigured to create a variety of designs from a small set of components. But constructing a robot's hardware on its own is not enough -- each robot needs a controller. One could create controllers for some designs…
The collective motion of arrays of cilia - tiny, hairlike protrusions - drives the locomotion of numerous microorganisms, enabling multimodal motion and autonomous switching between gaits to navigate complex environments. To endow…
Many current robot designs prioritize efficiency and one-size-fits-all solutions, oftentimes overlooking personalization, adaptability, and sustainability. To explore alternatives, we conducted two co-design workshops with 23 participants,…
When modeling complex robot systems such as branched robots, whose kinematic structures are a tree, current techniques often require modeling the whole structure from scratch, even when partial models for the branches are available. This…
In recent years, multimodal locomotion capabilities have enabled robots to maneuver in both terrestrial and aerial domains. However, most of these robots are designed only for locomotion, and few possess the manipulation capabilities…
Millirobots are a promising robotic platform for many applications due to their small size and low manufacturing costs. Legged millirobots, in particular, can provide increased mobility in complex environments and improved scaling of…
Bio-engineered robots are under rapid development due to their maneuver ability through uneven surfaces. This advancement paves the way for experimenting with versatile electrical system developments with various motors. In this research…
Recently, a new concept for continuum robots capable of producing macro-scale and micro-scale motion has been presented. These robots achieve their multi-scale motion capabilities by coupling direct-actuation of push-pull back-bones for…
This work developed collaborative bimanual manipulation for reliable and safe human-robot collaboration, which allows remote and local human operators to work interactively for bimanual tasks. We proposed an optimal motion adaptation to…
This paper discusses the design of a novel compliant in-pipe climbing modular robot for small diameter pipes. The robot consists of a kinematic chain of 3 OmniCrawler modules with a link connected in between 2 adjacent modules via compliant…
Many soft-body organisms found in nature flourish underwater. Similarly, soft robots are potentially well-suited for underwater environments partly because the problematic effects of gravity, friction, and harmonic oscillations are less…
Soft robots are known for their ability to perform tasks with great adaptability, enabled by their distributed, non-uniform stiffness and actuation. Bending is the most fundamental motion for soft robot design, but creating robust, and…
Magnetic navigation systems, including magnetic tracking systems and magnetic actuation systems, have shown great potential for occlusion-free localization and remote control of intracorporeal medical devices and robots in minimally…
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by the…
An important function of autonomous microrobots is the ability to perform robust movement over terrain. This paper explores an edge ML approach to microrobot locomotion, allowing for on-device, lower latency control under compute, memory,…
We study a novel architecture and training procedure for locomotion tasks. A high-frequency, low-level "spinal" network with access to proprioceptive sensors learns sensorimotor primitives by training on simple tasks. This pre-trained…