9 accepted papers
Skid-Steer Wheeled Mobile Robots (SSWMRs) are increasingly being used for off-road autonomy applications. When turning at high speeds, these robots tend to undergo significant skidding and slipping. In this work, using Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) and Sigma-Point Transforms, we estimate the non…
Conventional bidirectional conveyance platforms use a flat translating belt or a series of spinning wheels or rollers to apply a shear force to payloads to move them. Wheel/roller-based conveyors in particular cannot double as a worktop when idle, do not support collision-free multi-object manipulat…
Tactile sensing has been increasingly utilized in robot control of unknown objects to infer physical properties and optimize manipulation. However, there is limited understanding about the contribution of different sensory modalities during interactive perception in complex interaction both in robot…
Modern computer algorithms easily beat world champions in chess or Go, but state-of-the-art robots are still outperformed by two-year-old’s in manipulating the pieces, let alone interacting with more complex objects. This work studied human behavior when moving an underactuated object, a cup with a…
Control and manipulation of objects with underactuated dynamics remains a challenge for robots. Due to their typically nonlinear dynamics, it is computationally taxing to implement model-based planning and control techniques. Yet humans can skillfully manipulate such objects, seemingly with ease. Mo
Relatively little work in human and robot control has examined the control of underactuated objects with internal dynamics, such as transporting a cup of coffee, a task that presents little problems for humans. This study examined how humans move a `cup of coffee' with a view to identify principles…
This study examined strategies humans chose to manipulate an object with complex (nonlinear, underactuated) dynamics, such as liquid sloshing in a cup of coffee. The problem was simplified to the well-known cart-and-pendulum system moving on a horizontal line. This model was implemented in a virtual…
This study examines human control of physical interaction with objects that exhibit complex (nonlinear, chaotic, underactuated) dynamics. We hypothesized that humans exploited stability properties of the human-object interaction. Using a simplified 2D model for carrying a “cup of coffee”, we develop…
This letter presents a new approach to tackle the problem of infinite chattering, observed at bang-singular junctions of the minimum-time trajectories of car-like robots with bounded angular acceleration control. To eliminate chattering from time-optimal control solutions, we propose to relax the id