Publications related to An Optimal Control Formulation of Tool Affordance Applied to Impact Tasks

Memento Mori: Reliable robustness in self-reconfigurable modular robots

Modular robotics link the reliability of a centralised system with the adaptivity of a decentralised system. It is difficult for a robot with a fixed shape to be able to perform many different types of tasks. As the task space grows, the number of functi ...

EPFL2024

Investigating neural resource allocation in the sensorimotor control of extra limbs

Giulia Dominijanni

The rise of robotic body augmentation brings forth new developments that will transform robotics, human-machine interaction, and wearable electronics. Extra robotic limbs, although building upon restorative technologies, bring their own set of challenges i ...

EPFL2024

Gas Sensing with Rotary-Wing Nano Aerial Vehicles

Chiara Ercolani

Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and threatens human and animal lives. When gas leaks occur, the ...

EPFL2024

Robot Learning using Tensor Networks

Suhan Narayana Shetty

In various robotics applications, the selection of function approximation methods greatly influences the feasibility and computational efficiency of algorithms. Tensor Networks (TNs), also referred to as tensor decomposition techniques, present a versatile ...

EPFL2024

Motion Planning and Inertia Based Control for Impact Aware Manipulation

Aude Billard, Harshit Khurana

In this paper, we propose a metric called hitting flux which is used in the motion generation and controls for a robot manipulator to interact with the environment through a hitting or a striking motion. Given the task of placing a known object outside of ...

2023

Geometric and Learning Methods for Robots to Navigate in Human Crowds with Application to Smart Mobility Devices

David Julian Gonon

The thesis at hand is concerned with robots' navigation in human crowds. Specifically, methods are developed for planning a mobile robot's local motion between pedestrians, and they are evaluated in experiments where a robot interacts with real pedestrians ...

EPFL2023

Learning and optimization of anticipatory feedback controllers for robot manipulation

Hakan Girgin

Programming intelligent robots requires robust controllers that can achieve desired tasks while adapting to the changes in the task and the environment. In this thesis, we address the challenges in designing such adaptive and anticipatory feedback controll ...

EPFL2023

Computational Models of Mutual Understanding for Human-Robot Collaborative Learning

Utku Norman

There is a growing trend towards designing learning activities featuring robots as collaborative exercises where children work together to achieve the activity objectives, generating interactions that can trigger learning processes. Witnessing such activit ...

EPFL2023

A geometric optimal control approach for imitation and generalization of manipulation skills

Sylvain Calinon, Amirreza Razmjoo Fard, Jie Zhao

Daily manipulation tasks are characterized by regular features associated with the task structure, which can be described by multiple geometric primitives related to actions and object shapes. Only using Cartesian coordinate systems cannot fully represent ...

Elsevier2023

Memory of Motion for Initializing Optimization in Robotics

Teguh Santoso Lembono

Many robotics problems are formulated as optimization problems. However, most optimization solvers in robotics are locally optimal and the performance depends a lot on the initial guess. For challenging problems, the solver will often get stuck at poor loc ...

EPFL2022

Neural Joint Space Implicit Signed Distance Functions for Reactive Robot Manipulator Control

Aude Billard, Nadia Barbara Figueroa Fernandez, Mikhail Koptev

In this paper, we present an approach for learning a neural implicit signed distance function expressed in joint space coordinates, that efficiently computes distance-to-collisions for arbitrary robotic manipulator configurations. Computing such distances ...

2022

3PAC: A Plug-and-Play System for Distributed Power Sharing and Communication in Modular Robots

Jamie Paik, Christoph Heinrich Belke, Kevin Andrew Holdcroft

In modular robotics, there is classically a compromise between coupling complexity and functionality. The mechanical and electrical designs are linked, such that adding electrical features often requires redesigning the mechanical components. However, incr ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2022

Navigation of Concentric Tube Continuum Robots using Optimal Control

John Maddocks, Siva Prasad Chakri Dhanakoti

Recently developed Concentric Tube Continuum Robots (CTCRs) are widely exploited in, for example in minimally invasive surgeries which involve navigating inside narrow body cavities close to sensitive regions. These CTCRs can be controlled by extending and ...

SCITEPRESS2022

VIO-UWB-Based Collaborative Localization and Dense Scene Reconstruction within Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems

Fabrizio Schiano

Effective collaboration in multi-robot systems requires accurate and robust estimation of relative localization: from cooperative manipulation to collaborative sensing, and including cooperative exploration or cooperative transportation. This paper introdu ...

IEEE2022

Social/dialogical roles of social robots in supporting children's learning of language and literacy-A review and analysis of innovative roles

Barbara Bruno

One of the many purposes for which social robots are designed is education, and there have been many attempts to systematize their potential in this field. What these attempts have in common is the recognition that learning can be supported in a variety of ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

Introducing Productive Engagement for Social Robots Supporting Learning

Jauwairia Nasir

We have all been one such student or seen such students who can maintain the 'good student' image while playing a video game under the table or those loyal backbenchers, seemingly always distracted, who then ace their exams. These intricacies of human beha ...

EPFL2022

Optimization of robot configurations for motion planning in industrial riveting

Sylvain Calinon, Hakan Girgin, Teguh Santoso Lembono

Collaborative robots (cobots) have been increasingly used in the industry in recent years. The cobots are often 7-axis kinematically redundant manipulators. Exploiting these redundancies in industrial tasks is still a challenge as the change in the robot j ...

IEEE2021

Learning from demonstration using products of experts: Applications to manipulation and task prioritization

Sylvain Calinon, Emmanuel Pignat

Probability distributions are key components of many learning from demonstration (LfD) approaches, with the spaces chosen to represent tasks playing a central role. Although the robot configuration is defined by its joint angles, end-effector poses are oft ...

2021

Learning Constrained Distributions of Robot Configurations with Generative Adversarial Network

Sylvain Calinon, Emmanuel Pignat, Teguh Santoso Lembono, Julius Maximilian Jankowski

In high dimensional robotic system, the manifold of the valid configuration space often has a complex shape, especially under constraints such as end-effector orientation or static stability. We propose a generative adversarial network approach to learn th ...

IEEE2021

Product of experts for robot learning from demonstration

Emmanuel Pignat

Adaptability and ease of programming are key features necessary for a wider spread of robotics in factories and everyday assistance. Learning from demonstration (LfD) is an approach to address this problem. It aims to develop algorithms and interfaces such ...

EPFL2021