10 accepted papers
Achieving safe and robust interaction in articulated-soft humanoid robots (ASRs) remains a major challenge due to their compliant joints, high degree of freedom, and highly nonlinear coupled dynamics, which makes them especially sensitive to external disturbances. This paper presents a novel contact…
Deformable objects often appear in unstructured configurations. Tracing deformable objects helps bringing them into extended states and facilitating the downstream manipulation tasks. Due to the requirements for object-specific modeling or sim-to-real transfer, existing tracing methods either lack g…
Peg-in-hole (PiH) assembly is a fundamental yet challenging robotic manipulation task. While reinforcement learning (RL) has shown promise in tackling such tasks, it requires extensive exploration. In this paper, we propose a novel visual-tactile skill learning framework for the PiH task that levera
In this paper, we present an autonomous control system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), specifically designed to inspect a detected suspicious vessel and capture information-rich images in a maritime environment. The maritime environment is ever-changing and uncertain, making it challenging to p
This paper aims at unifying simplified models of balancing – based on linear, centre-of-mass (CoM) expressions – and articulated-soft floating-base (ASFB) robot dynamics models, for control design. Two distinct controller variations are introduced: the first operates by mapping gross applied force r
This letter presents a novel control methodology that is based on an amalgamation of model-based, power-shaping control (PSC), and feedback deactivation. It has been hypothesised that proportional position control of flexible-joint robots can impinge on their interactional performance, since positio
Coordinate calibration accuracy is a prerequisite for the achievement of collaborative motion of dual robots, and visual positioning. In the case of AXB=YCZ, the associated hand-eye (X), robot-robot (Y), and tool-flange (Z) coordinate relationships need to be determined in order to provide accurate
This paper presents novel control techniques for passivation and stabilisation of floating-base systems with contacts, whose dynamical models comprise both joint-space, and Cartesian floating-base coordinates. The aforementioned results are achieved using both minimally model-based, and completely m…
Serial manipulator kinematics provide a mapping between joint variables in joint-space coordinates, and end-effector configurations in task-space Cartesian coordinates. Velocity mappings are represented via the manipulator Jacobian produced by direct differentiation of the forward kinematics. Acquis…
The work presented herein, attempts to address the problem of designing stepping recovery controllers for compliantly actuated humanoid robots. Based on the decomposition of the stepping procedure into three distinct phases, which are characterized by unique combinations of configurations and impeda…