10 accepted papers
This paper focuses on the design and comparison of different deep neural networks for the real-time prediction of locomotor intentions by using data from inertial measurement units. The deep neural network architectures are convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, and convolutional…
This letter presents a novel rotational variable stiffness joint that relies on one motor and a set of variable stiffness springs. The variable stiffness springs are leaf springs with a layered design, i.e., an electro-active layer of electrospun aligned nanofibers of poly(vinylidene fluoride-triflu
This paper presents the autonomous battery exchange operation for small scale UAVs, using a mobile ground base that carries a robotic arm and a service station containing the battery exchange mechanism. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the means to increase the autonomy and persistence of rob…
This paper presents a 2-degree-of-freedom (DOF) joint with coupled variable output stiffness that makes use of three actuators, i.e., two for the 2-D joint motions and one for the joint stiffness adjustment. By base-mounting the actuators and the variable stiffness module that contains the passive e
The paper presents a control method to catch a moving object with a joint actuated by means of a variable stiffness actuator. The controller is designed such that the variable stiffness joint acts as a virtual damper that absorbs the kinetic energy of the moving object. The virtual damping and the o…
This paper presents the mechatronic design of a robotic arm that is mounted on a ground rover and used to deploy and recover small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles. The arm and rover are part of a network of collaborative robotic agents aiming to enhance current rescue operations by supporting human o…
The increasing use of Variable Stiffness Actuators (VSAs) in robotic joints is helping robots to meet the demands of human-robot interaction, requiring high safety and adaptability. The key feature of a VSA is the ability to exploit internal elastic elements to obtain a variable output stiffness. Th…
This paper proposes a control architecture for a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles that is responsible for handling the events that take place in a given area. The architecture guarantees that each event is handled by the required number of vehicles in the shortest time, while the rest of the fleet
In this paper a robust PID controller for quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles is proposed that uses the parameter space approach. Stability and robustness analyses are carried out in the controller parameter space to determine a set of stable controller gains that guarantee also robustness against sy…
This paper proposes a semi-autonomous bilateral control architecture for unmanned aerial vehicles. During autonomous navigation, a human operator is allowed to assist the autonomous controller of the vehicle by actively changing its navigation parameters to assist it in critical situations, such as…