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In nature, animals often need to move/manipulate objects comparable in weight/size to their own bodies. Compared to grasping and carrying, pushing provides a more straightforward and efficient non-prehensile manipulation strategy, avoiding…
This work presents an actuation framework for a bioinspired flapping drone called Aerobat. This drone, capable of producing dynamically versatile wing conformations, possesses 14 body joints and is tail-less. Therefore, in our robot, unlike…
Robots and particularly drones are especially useful in exploring extreme environments that pose hazards to humans. To ensure safe operations in these situations, usually perceptually degraded and without good GNSS, it is critical to have a…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
For safe and effective operation of humanoid robots in human-populated environments, the problem of commanding a large number of Degrees of Freedom (DoF) while simultaneously considering dynamic obstacles and human proximity has still not…
Omnidirectional aerial vehicles (OMAVs) have opened up a wide range of possibilities for inspection, navigation, and manipulation applications using drones. In this paper, we introduce MorphEUS, a morphable co-axial quadrotor that can…
Torque and continuous rotation are fundamental methods of actuation and manipulation in rigid robots. Soft robot arms use soft materials and structures to mimic the passive compliance of biological arms that bend and extend. This use of…
Hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) integrate the efficient forward flight of fixed-wing and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities of multicopter UAVs. This paper presents the modeling, control and simulation of a new type of…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
Omnidirectional aerial robots offer full 6-DoF independent control over position and orientation, making them popular for aerial manipulation. Although advancements in robotic autonomy, human operation remains essential in complex aerial…
Many soft robots struggle to produce dynamic motions with fast, large displacements. We develop a parallel 6 degree-of-freedom (DoF) Stewart-Gough mechanism using Handed Shearing Auxetic (HSA) actuators. By using soft actuators, we are able…
This paper addresses the problem of traversing through unknown, tilted, and narrow gaps for quadrotors using Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). Previous learning-based methods relied on accurate knowledge of the environment, including the…
As drones are getting more and more entangled in our society, more untrained users require the capability to operate them. This scenario is to be achieved through the development of artificial intelligence capabilities assisting the human…
We propose a novel concept of augmented reality (AR) human-drone interaction driven by RL-based swarm behavior to achieve intuitive and immersive control of a swarm formation of unmanned aerial vehicles. The DroneARchery system developed by…
The miniaturisation of sensors and processors, the advancements in connected edge intelligence, and the exponential interest in Artificial Intelligence are boosting the affirmation of autonomous nano-size drones in the Internet of Robotic…
We introduce UFO, a modular aerial robotic platform for transforming a rigid object into a multirotor robot. To achieve this, we develop flight modules, in the form of a control module and propelling modules, that can be affixed to an…
Bipedal locomotion makes humanoid robots inherently prone to falls, causing catastrophic damage to the expensive sensors, actuators, and structural components of full-scale robots. To address this critical barrier to real-world deployment,…
This paper presents an aerial platform capable of performing physically interactive tasks in unstructured environments with human-like dexterity under human supervision. This aerial platform consists of a humanoid torso attached to a…
Tilt-rotor aerial robots enable omnidirectional maneuvering through thrust vectoring, but introduce significant control challenges due to the strong coupling between joint and rotor dynamics. While model-based controllers can achieve high…
Tailsitter aircraft attract considerable interest due to their capabilities of both agile hover and high speed forward flight. However, traditional tailsitters that use aerodynamic control surfaces face the challenge of limited control…