8 accepted papers
We present a novel approach to robotic grasp planning using both a learned grasp proposal network and a learned 3D shape reconstruction network. Our system generates 6-DOF grasps from a single RGB-D image of the target object, which is provided as input to both networks. By using the geometric recon…
uilding structures can allow a robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of areas it can reach. This paper presents a planning algorithm to automatically determine what structures a construction-capable robot must build in order to traverse its entire environment. Given an environment, a
We present a novel method enabling robots to quickly learn to manipulate objects by leveraging a motion planner to generate “expert” training trajectories from a small amount of human-labeled data. In contrast to the traditional sense-plan-act cycle, we propose a deep learning architecture and train…
We present a system enabling a modular robot to autonomously build structures in order to accomplish high-level tasks. Building structures allows the robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of tasks it can perform. This addresses a common weakness of modular robot systems, which often s…
The PaintPot manufacturing process is a new way to create low-cost, low-profile, highly customizable potentiometers for position sensing in robotic applications. It uses widely accessible materials, requires no special expertise, and creates custom potentiometers in a variety of shapes and sizes, in…
The advantage of modular robot systems lies in their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if there exists some reliable, effective way of generating configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) appropriate for a given task. In this paper, we present an end-to-end syst…
We present the EP-Face connector, a novel connector for hybrid chain-lattice type modular robots that is high-strength (88.4N), compact, fast, power efficient, and robust to position errors.
We address the problem of detecting embeddability of modular robots: namely, to decide automatically whether a given modular robot design can simulate the functionality of a seemingly different design. To that end, we introduce a novel graph representation for modular robots and formalize the notion…