15 accepted papers
Deformable object shape control involves the autonomous manipulation of deformable objects so that they acquire a desired target shape. This constitutes a vast challenge due to the wide variety of deformable object types and manipulation methods. The multidisciplinary nature of shape control spans f
This letter considers existing leaderless distributed controllers that achieve three types of planar multirobot formation. Concretely, these formations are equal to a reference configuration up to translation (type F1), shape-preserving transformation (type F2), and affine transformation (type F3).
Shape control strategies seek to bring deformable objects towards a desired target shape. However, conventional methods focus on reaching the target shape without considering the extent to which the object is deformed during the control process. Control actions may generate unnecessary deformations
We present a formation controller for a team of mobile robots, modelled with double-integrator dynamics, to manipulate deformable objects grasped around their contour. The manipulation task is defined as reaching a target configuration consisting of a desired shape, scale, position and orientation o
We propose a new approach to control the shape of deformable objects with robots. Specifically, we consider a fixed-length elastic linear object lying on a 2D workspace. Our main idea is to encode the object's deformation behavior in an offline constant Jacobian matrix. To derive this Jacobian, we u…
The papers in this special section focus on robotic handling of deformable objects. Object handling and manipulation is a recurrent theme in robotics, moving progressively from simple rigid objects to articulated objects and then complex deformable objects. In recent years, there has been a growing
Shape control involves bringing a deformable object to a desired shape. In the shape control literature, the positioning of the grippers on the object is usually predefined (user-defined) and therefore considered as input information. In this paper we address the gripper positioning problem for shap…
In this paper, we propose a formation control system for deforming and transporting simultaneously a de-formable object with a team of robots, modeled with double-integrator dynamics. The goal is to reach a target configuration, defined as a combination of shape, scale, orientation and position of t…
Many applications require exploring or monitoring a region. This can be achieved by a sensor network, a large team of robots which can cover only a very small fraction each. When the region is convex, small, and static, it suffices to deploy the robots as a Centroidal Voronoi Tessellation (CVT). Ins
This letter addresses the problem of controlling multiple robots to form a prescribed team shape in two-dimensional space. We consider a team organization in interlaced triads (i.e., groups of three robots). For each triad we define a measure of geometric deformation relative to its prescribed shape
Shape control has become a prominent research field as it enables the automation of tasks in many applications. Overall, deforming an object to a desired target shape by using few grippers is a major challenge. The limited information about the object dynamics, the need to combine small and large de…
This letter presents a novel method to estimate the relative poses between RGB and depth cameras without the requirement of an overlapping field of view, thus providing flexibility to calibrate a variety of sensor configurations. This calibration problem is relevant to robotic applications that can
In this letter, we propose a novel procedure for three-dimensional layout recovery of indoor scenes from single 360° panoramic images. With such images, all scene is seen at once, allowing us to recover closed geometries. Our method combines strategically the accuracy provided by geometric reasoning
An emerging application of multirobot systems is the monitoring of a dynamic event. Here, the goal is to enclose and track a moving target by attaining a desired geometric formation around it. By considering a circular pattern configuration for the target enclosing, the multirobot system is able to…
This paper shows how to push an unknown object in the plane from an initial pose to a target pose with two cooperating mobile robots. On the object motion, we deliberately impose non-holonomic velocity constraint with pushing mobile robots. This yields smooth and efficient trajectories. Pushing mani…