26 accepted papers
The interaction of robots with bendable objects in midair presents significant challenges in control, often resulting in performance degradation and potential crashes, especially for aerial robots due to their limited actuation capabilities and constant need to remain airborne. This paper presents a…
Knots provide compact, lightweight, and mechanically stable configurations that are invaluable for aerial transportation and construction. However, autonomous knot formation in midair remains an open challenge due to the dexterity and complexity of manipulating flexible cables. In this paper, we pre…
The interaction of robots with bendable objects in midair presents significant challenges in control, often resulting in performance degradation and potential crashes, especially for aerial robots due to their limited actuation capabilities and constant need to remain airborne. This letter presents
Efficient energy management and scalability are critical for aerial robots in tasks such as pickup-and-delivery and surveillance. This paper introduces MochiSwarm, an open-source testbed of light-weight micro robotic blimps designed for multi-robot operation without external localization. We propose
This paper presents the Spinning Blimp, a novel lighter-than-air (LTA) aerial vehicle designed for low-energy stable flight. Using an oblate spheroid helium balloon for buoyancy, the vehicle achieves minimal energy consumption while maintaining prolonged airborne states. The unique and low-cost desi
Traditional aerial vehicles have limitations in their capabilities due to actuator constraints, such as motor saturation. The hardware components and their arrangement are designed to satisfy specific requirements and are difficult to modify during operation. To address this problem, we introduce a…
The use of cables for aerial manipulation has shown to be a lightweight and versatile way to interact with objects. However, fastening objects using cables is still a challenge and human is required. In this work, we propose a novel way to secure objects using hitches. The hitch can be formed and mo…
Aerial operation in turbulent environments is a challenging problem due to the chaotic behavior of the flow. This problem is made even more complex when a team of aerial robots is trying to achieve coordinated motion in turbulent wind conditions. In this letter, we present a novel multi-robot contro
We present an aerial vehicle composed of a custom quadrotor with tilted rotors and a helium balloon, called SBlimp. We propose a novel control strategy that takes advantage of the natural stable attitude of the blimp to control translational motion. Different from cascade controllers in the literatu…
From ancient times, humans have been using cables and ropes to tie, carry, and manipulate objects by folding knots. However, automating knot folding is challenging because it requires dexterity to move a cable over and under itself. In this paper, we propose a method to fold knots in midair using a…
We present a design, model, and control for a novel jumping-flying robot that is called PogoDrone. The robot is composed of a quadrotor with a passive mechanism for jumping. The robot can continuously jump in place or fly like a normal quadrotor. Jumping in place allows the robot to quickly move and…
Flying Modular Structures offer a versatile mechanism that can change the arrangement of constituent actuators according to task requirements. In this work, we extend a modular aerial platform that can expand its actuation capabilities depending on the configuration. Each module is composed of a qua…
Traditional aerial vehicles are usually custom-designed for specific tasks. Although they offer an efficient solution, they are not always able to adapt to changes in the task specification, e.g., increasing the payload. This applies to quadrotors, having a maximum payload and only four controllable…
Transporting objects using quadrotors with cables has been widely studied in the literature. However, most of those approaches assume that the cables are previously attached to the load by human intervention. In tasks where multiple objects need to be moved, the efficiency of the robotic system is c…
This letter presents a resilient mechanism to allocate heterogeneous robots to tasks under difficult environmental conditions such as weather events or adversarial attacks. Our primary objective is to ensure that each task is assigned the requisite level of resources, measured as the aggregated capa
Transporting objects using aerial robots has been widely studied in the literature. Still, those approaches always assume that the connection between the quadrotor and the load is made in a previous stage. However, that previous stage usually requires human intervention, and autonomous procedures to
Modular aerial robots can adapt their shape to suit a wide range of tasks, but developing efficient self-reconfiguration algorithms is still a challenge. Self-reconfiguration algorithms in the literature rely on high-accuracy global positioning systems which are not realistic for real-world applicat
Robot networks are susceptible to fail under the presence of malicious or defective robots. Resilient networks in the literature require high connectivity and large communication ranges, leading to high energy consumption in the communication network. This paper presents robot formations with guaran…
We present a self-reconfiguration technique by which a modular Hying platform can mitigate the impact of rotor failures. In this technique, the system adapts its configuration in response to rotor failures to be able to continue its mission while efficiently utilizing resources. A mixed integer line
Robotic modular systems have the ability to create and break physical links to self-assemble larger custom robots for general tasks. In case of changes in the task or the environment, they can dynamically self-adapt by self-reconfiguring during the mission. However, applying these concepts to flying
Flying modular robots have the potential to rapidly form temporary structures. In the literature, docking actions rely on external systems and indoor infrastructures for relative pose estimation. In contrast to related work, we provide local estimation during the self-assembly process to avoid depen…
We present a novel flying modular platform capable of grasping and transporting objects. It is composed of four cooperative identical modules where each is based on a quadrotor within a cuboid frame with a docking mechanism. Pairs of modules are able to fly independently and physically connect by ma…
We introduce ModQuad, a novel flying modular robotic structure that is able to self-assemble in midair and cooperatively fly. The structure is composed by agile flying modules that can easily move in a three dimensional environment. The module is based on a quadrotor platform within a cuboid frame w…
Recent work in the field of bio-inspired robotic systems has introduced designs for modular robots that are able to assemble into structures (e.g., bridges, landing platforms, fences) using their bodies as the building components. Yet, it remains an open question as to how to program large swarms of…
In this work, multiple robots circulate around the boundary of a desired region in order to create a virtual fence. The aim of the this fence is to avoid internal or external agents crossing through the delimited area. In this paper, we propose a distributed technique that allows a team of robots to…
In many cases, large area disasters could be possibly be prevented if the incipient small-scale anomalies are detected in their early stages. A way to accomplish this would be to have multiple sensors deployed in disaster prone areas to detect anomalies. However, compared to static sensor networks,…