Related papers: Shape-Interpretable Visual Self-Modeling Enables G…

We give a geometric account of kinematic control of a spherical rolling robot controlled by two internal wheels just like the toy robot Sphero. Particularly, we introduce the notion of shape space and fibers to the system by exploiting its…

It is well-known that inverse dynamics models can improve tracking performance in robot control. These models need to precisely capture the robot dynamics, which consist of well-understood components, e.g., rigid body dynamics, and effects…

Accurate modelling of object deformations is crucial for a wide range of robotic manipulation tasks, where interacting with soft or deformable objects is essential. Current methods struggle to generalise to unseen forces or adapt to new…

Humans leverage multiple sensor modalities when interacting with objects and discovering their intrinsic properties. Using the visual modality alone is insufficient for deriving intuition behind object properties (e.g., which of two boxes…

This paper introduces a manipulation framework for the elastic rod, including shape representation, sensorimotor-model estimation, and shape controller. Until now, the manipulation of the elastic rod has faced several challenges: 1) shape…

This paper proposes a general approach to design automatic controls to manipulate elastic objects into desired shapes. The object's geometric model is defined as the shape feature based on the specific task to globally describe the…

The automatic design of robots has existed for 30 years but has been constricted by serial non-differentiable design evaluations, premature convergence to simple bodies or clumsy behaviors, and a lack of sim2real transfer to physical…

Construction robots operate in unstructured construction sites, where effective visual perception is crucial for ensuring safe and seamless operations. However, construction robots often handle large elements and perform tasks across…

Robots operating in the real world will experience a range of different environments and tasks. It is essential for the robot to have the ability to adapt to its surroundings to work efficiently in changing conditions. Evolutionary robotics…

Reliable object grasping is a crucial capability for autonomous robots. However, many existing grasping approaches focus on general clutter removal without explicitly modeling objects and thus only relying on the visible local geometry. We…

Humans have a strong intuitive understanding of the 3D environment around us. The mental model of the physics in our brain applies to objects of different materials and enables us to perform a wide range of manipulation tasks that are far…

Mobile robots, performing long-term manipulation activities in human environments, have to perceive a wide variety of objects possessing very different visual characteristics and need to reliably keep track of these throughout the execution…

Continuum robots have the potential to enable new applications in medicine, inspection, and countless other areas due to their unique shape, compliance, and size. Excellent progess has been made in the mechanical design and dynamic…

We introduce shape-changing swarm robots. A swarm of self-transformable robots can both individually and collectively change their configuration to display information, actuate objects, act as tangible controllers, visualize data, and…

The pattern formation task is commonly seen in a multi-robot system. In this paper, we study the problem of forming complex shapes with functionally limited mobile robots, which have to rely on other robots to precisely locate themselves.…

Identifying predictive world models for robots in novel environments from sparse online observations is essential for robot task planning and execution in novel environments. However, existing methods that leverage differentiable…

Compared to the micro continuum robots that use traditional manufacturing technology, the micro fabricated continuum robots are different in terms of the application of smart materials, additive manufacturing process, and physical field…

Shape sensing of medical continuum robots is important both for closed-loop control as well as for enabling the clinician to visualize the robot inside the body. There is a need for inexpensive, but accurate shape sensing technologies. This…

Knowing the state of a robot is critical for many problems, such as feedback control. For continuum robots, state estimation is an incredible challenge. First, the motion of a continuum robot involves many kinematic states, including poses,…

Assistive robotic systems have shown growing potential to improve the quality of life of those with disabilities. As researchers explore the automation of various caregiving tasks, considerations for how the technology can still preserve…