Related papers: Self-assembling Modular Aerial Robot for Versatile…

Multimodal UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are rarely capable of more than two modalities, i.e., flying and walking or flying and perching. However, being able to fly, perch, and walk could further improve their usefulness by expanding…

Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…

Modular reconfigurable robots require reliable mechanisms for automated module exchange, but conventional rigid active couplings often fail due to inevitable positioning and orientational errors. To address this, we propose a…

As legged robots take on roles in industrial and autonomous construction, collaborative loco-manipulation is crucial for handling large and heavy objects that exceed the capabilities of a single robot. However, ensuring the safety of these…

The standard quadrotor is one of the most popular and widely used aerial vehicle of recent decades, offering great maneuverability with mechanical simplicity. However, the under-actuation characteristic limits its applications, especially…

Robotics plays a pivotal role in planetary science and exploration, where autonomous and reliable systems are crucial due to the risks and challenges inherent to space environments. The establishment of permanent lunar bases demands robotic…

As access to space and robotic autonomy capabilities move forward, there is simultaneously a growing interest in deploying large, complex space structures to provide new on-orbit capabilities. New space-borne observatories, large orbital…

This paper introduces a cube-based reconfigurable robot that utilizes an electromagnet-based actuation framework to reconfigure in three dimensions via pivoting. While a variety of actuation mechanisms for self-reconfigurable robots have…

Modular robotics research has long been preoccupied with perfecting the modules themselves -- their actuation methods, connectors, controls, communication, and fabrication. This inward focus results, in part, from the complexity of the task…

The problem of robotic synchronisation and coordination is a long-standing one. Combining autonomous, computerised systems with unpredictable real-world conditions can have consequences ranging from poor performance to collisions and…

There is a growing need for robots that can change their shape, size and mechanical properties to adapt to evolving tasks and environments. However, current shape-changing systems generally utilize bespoke, system-specific mechanisms that…

The deployment of simple emergent behaviors in swarm robotics has been well-rehearsed in the literature. A recent study has shown how self-aggregation is possible in a multitask approach -- where multiple self-aggregation task instances…

Cooperative object transportation using multiple robots has been intensively studied in the control and robotics literature, but most approaches are either only applicable to omnidirectional robots or lack a complete navigation and…

There are various desired capabilities to create aerial forest-traversing robots capable of monitoring both biological and abiotic data. The features range from multi-functionality, robustness, and adaptability. These robots have to weather…

Cooperative transportation via multiple aerial robots has the potential to support various payloads and reduce the chances of them being dropped. Furthermore, autonomously controlled robots render the system scalable with respect to the…

With the increasing presence of social robots in various environments and applications, there is an increasing need for these robots to exhibit socially-compliant behaviors. Legible motion, characterized by the ability of a robot to clearly…

This paper presents the design and implementation of a self-reconfigurable V-shape formation controller for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) navigating through narrow spaces in a dense obstacle environment. The selection of the…

Utilizing teams of multiple robots is advantageous for handling bulky objects. Many related works focus on multi-manipulator systems, which are limited by workspace constraints. In this paper, we extend a classical hybrid motion-force…

We consider a distributed system consisting of autonomous mobile computing entities, called robots, moving in a specified space. The robots are anonymous, oblivious, and have neither any access to the global coordinate system nor any…

We present a system enabling a modular robot to autonomously build structures in order to accomplish high-level tasks. Building structures allows the robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of tasks it can perform. This…