Related papers: A Dynamic Toolkit for Transmission Characteristics…
Many manipulation tasks require the robot to control the contact between a grasped compliant tool and the environment, e.g. scraping a frying pan with a spatula. However, modeling tool-environment interaction is difficult, especially when…
Vehicle power-trains use a variable transmission (multiple gear-ratios) to minimize motor size and maximize efficiency while meeting a wide-range of operating points. Robots could similarly benefit from variable transmission to save weight…
Common methods for learning robot dynamics assume motion is continuous, causing unrealistic model predictions for systems undergoing discontinuous impact and stiction behavior. In this work, we resolve this conflict with a smooth, implicit…
We describe a framework for changing-contact robot manipulation tasks that require the robot to make and break contacts with objects and surfaces. The discontinuous interaction dynamics of such tasks make it difficult to construct and use a…
Robotic manipulation can greatly benefit from the data efficiency, robustness, and predictability of model-based methods if robots can quickly generate models of novel objects they encounter. This is especially difficult when effects like…
Robots must make and break contact with the environment to perform useful tasks, but planning and control through contact remains a formidable challenge. In this work, we achieve real-time contact-implicit model predictive control with a…
Bridging the sim-to-real gap remains a fundamental challenge in robotics, as accurate dynamic parameter estimation is essential for reliable model-based control, realistic simulation, and safe deployment of manipulators. Traditional…
Humanoid robots dynamically navigate an environment by interacting with it via contact wrenches exerted at intermittent contact poses. Therefore, it is important to consider dynamics when planning a contact sequence. Traditional contact…
Industrial manipulators do not collapse under their own weight when powered off due to the friction in their joints. Although these mechanism are effective for stiff position control of pick-and-place, they are inappropriate for legged…
Soft robots are well suited for contact-rich tasks due to their compliance, yet this property makes accurate and tractable modeling challenging. Planning motions with dynamically-feasible trajectories requires models that capture arbitrary…
In recent years, soft robotics simulators have evolved to offer various functionalities, including the simulation of different material types (e.g., elastic, hyper-elastic) and actuation methods (e.g., pneumatic, cable-driven, servomotor).…
Many robot manipulation tasks require the robot to make and break contact with objects and surfaces. The dynamics of such changing-contact robot manipulation tasks are discontinuous when contact is made or broken, and continuous elsewhere.…
This paper presents a novel manipulation strategy that uses keypoint correspondences extracted from visuo-tactile sensor images to facilitate precise object manipulation. Our approach uses the visuo-tactile feedback to guide the robot's…
This paper investigates real-time control strategies for dynamical systems that involve frictional contact interactions. Hybridness and underactuation are key characteristics of these systems that complicate the design of feedback…
A realistic simulation environment is an essential tool in every roboticist's toolkit, with uses ranging from planning and control to training policies with reinforcement learning. Despite the centrality of simulation in modern robotics,…
Soft robotic manipulators provide numerous advantages over conventional rigid manipulators in fragile environments such as the marine environment. However, developing analytic inverse models necessary for shape, motion, and force control of…
Robot simulation has been an essential tool for data-driven manipulation tasks. However, most existing simulation frameworks lack either efficient and accurate models of physical interactions with tactile sensors or realistic tactile…
Humans leverage the dynamics of the environment and their own bodies to accomplish challenging tasks such as grasping an object while walking past it or pushing off a wall to turn a corner. Such tasks often involve switching dynamics as the…
Direct collocation methods are powerful tools to solve trajectory optimization problems in robotics. While their resulting trajectories tend to be dynamically accurate, they may also present large kinematic errors in the case of constrained…
Formal verification of robotic tasks requires a simple yet conformant model of the used robot. We present the first work on generating reachset conformant models for robotic contact tasks considering hybrid (mixed continuous and discrete)…