18 accepted papers
This study presents a novel hydrofoil-based propulsion system for water surface-operating robots, inspired by the paddling locomotion of aquatic species. Several hydrofoil designs were developed and evaluated using a custom Hydroflapper setup to assess their hydrodynamic performance. The proposed fr
Existing aquatic robotic vehicles tend to be large, heavy, and difficult to deploy. This often renders them unsuitable for monitoring delicate aquatic habitats and hard-to-access areas. We present a comprehensive framework for the design and development of sailing micro aerial vehicles (SailMAVs), w…
Aerial robots show significant potential for forest canopy research and environmental monitoring by providing data collection capabilities at high spatial and temporal resolutions. However, limited flight endurance hinders their application. Inspired by natural perching behaviours, we propose a mult…
We present a virtual reality (VR) teleoperation interface for a ground-based robot, featuring dense 3D environment reconstruction and a low latency video stream, with which operators can immersively explore remote environments. At the UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) Remote Applications in Chall…
Aerial robots have a wide range of applications, such as collecting data in hard-to-reach areas. This requires the longest possible operation time. However, because currently available commercial batteries have limited specific energy of roughly 300 W h kg-1, a drone's flight time is a bottleneck fo…
Accessing and interacting with difficult to reach surfaces at various orientations is of interest within a variety of industrial contexts. Thus far, the predominant robotic solution to such a problem has been to leverage the maneuverability of a fully actuated, omnidirectional aerial manipulator. Su
The recent momentum in aerial manipulation has led to an interest in developing virtual reality interfaces for aerial physical interaction tasks with simple, intuitive, and reliable control and perception. However, this requires the use of expensive subsystems and there is still a research gap betwe…
Using a delta-manipulator for stabilisation of an end-effector to perform precise spatial positioning is a current area of interest in aerial manipulation. High speed precision movements of a manipulator can cause disturbances to the aerial platform, which hinders trajectory tracking and in some cas…
Current aerial robots are increasingly adaptive; they can morph to enable operation in changing conditions to complete diverse missions. Each mission may require the robot to conduct a different task. A conventional learning approach can handle these variations when the system is trained for similar…
Optical flow sensors and optical flow divergence (OFD) have offered partial solutions for obstacle avoidance, landing, and perching with micro aerial vehicles. Theoretically, OFD can indicate the risk of collision, providing that the sensors' field of view is bounded within a single flat surface on
Electrospinning has exhibited excellent benefits to treat the trauma for tissue engineering due to its produced micro/nano fibrous structure. It can effectively adhere to the tissue surface for long-term continuous therapy. This paper develops a robotic electrospinning platform for endoluminal thera…
Robots are often used for sensing and sampling in natural environments. Within this area, soft robots have become increasingly popular for these tasks because their mechanical compliance makes them safer to interact with. Unfortunately, if these robots break while working in vulnerable environments,
Aerial-aquatic robots possess the unique ability of operating in both air and water. However, this capability comes with tremendous challenges, such as communication incompatibility, increased airborne mass, potentially inefficient operation in each of the environments and manufacturing difficulties
Multi-directional aerial platforms can fly in almost any orientation and direction, often maneuvering in ways their underactuated counterparts cannot match. A subset of multi-directional platforms is fully-actuated multirotors, where all six degrees of freedom are independently controlled without re
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been shown to be useful for the installation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). More notably, the accurate placement of sensor nodes using UAVs, opens opportunities for many industrial and scientific uses, in particular, in hazardous environments or inaccessible
Despite significant research progress on small-scale aerial–aquatic robots, most existing prototypes are still constrained by short operation times and limited performance in different fluids. The main challenge is to design a vehicle that satisfies the partially conflicting design requirements for
We present a power and control autonomous, insect-scale legged robot the Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot with RF communication (HAMR-F). At only 2.8 g and 4.5 cm in length, HAMR-F is capable of locomotion at speeds up to 17.2 cm/s (3.8 body lengths per second) with an onboard battery. Two microcontrol
Aerial-aquatic locomotion would allow a broad array of tasks in robot-enabled environmental monitoring or disaster management. One of the most significant challenges of aerial-aquatic locomotion in mobile robots is finding a propulsion system that is capable of working effectively in both fluids and