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Stella, F. (author), Della Santina, C. (author), Hughes, Josie (author)The control possibilities for soft robots have long been hindered by the need for reliable methods to estimate their configuration. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) can solve this challenge, but they are affected by well-known drift issues. This letter proposes a method to eliminate this limitation by leveraging the Piecewise Constant...journal article 2024
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Peters, L. (author), Bajcsy, Andrea (author), Chiu, Chih Yuan (author), Fridovich-Keil, David (author), Laine, Forrest (author), Ferranti, L. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author)Contingency planning, wherein an agent generates a set of possible plans conditioned on the outcome of an uncertain event, is an increasingly popular way for robots to act under uncertainty. In this work we take a game-theoretic perspective on contingency planning, tailored to multi-agent scenarios in which a robot's actions impact the...journal article 2024
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Zhu, J. (author), Gienger, Michael (author), Franzese, G. (author), Kober, J. (author)Developing physically assistive robots capable of dressing assistance has the potential to significantly improve the lives of the elderly and disabled population. However, most robotics dressing strategies considered a single robot only, which greatly limited the performance of the dressing assistance. In fact, healthcare professionals...journal article 2024
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Wilde, N. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author)We study the problem of finding statistically distinct plans for stochastic task assignment problems such as online multi-robot pickup and delivery (MRPD) when facing multiple competing objectives. In many real-world settings robot fleets do not only need to fulfil delivery requests, but also have to consider auxiliary objectives such as...journal article 2024
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Pustina, P. (author), Della Santina, C. (author), Boyer, Frederic (author), De Luca, Alessandro (author), Renda, Federico (author)Suitable representations of dynamical systems can simplify their analysis and control. On this line of thought, this article aims to answer the following question: Can a transformation of the generalized coordinates under which the actuators directly perform work on a subset of the configuration variables be found? We not only show that the...journal article 2024
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Caradonna, Daniele (author), Pierallini, M. (author), Della Santina, C. (author), Angelini, Franco (author), Bicchi, Antonio (author)Soft robots enable safe and robust operations in unstructured environments. However, the nonlinearities of their continuum structure complicate the accomplishment of classic robotic tasks, such as pick and place. In this work, we propose the R-Soft Inverted Pendulum, a Soft Inverted Pendulum (SIP) actuated only by a revolute joint at the base...journal article 2024
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Xin, Jianbin (author), Meng, Chuang (author), D'Ariano, Andrea (author), Schulte, F. (author), Peng, Jinzhu (author), Negenborn, R.R. (author)This paper investigates a novel routing problem of a multi-robot station in a manufacturing cell. In the existing literature, the objective is to minimize the cycle time or energy consumption separately. The routing problem considered in this paper aims to reduce the cycle time and energy consumption jointly for each robot while avoiding...journal article 2023
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Xin, Jianbin (author), Wu, Xuwen (author), D'Ariano, Andrea (author), Negenborn, R.R. (author), Zhang, Fangfang (author)Most of the existing path planning methods of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are static. This paper proposes a new methodology for the path planning of a fleet of AGVs to improve the flexibility, robustness, and scalability of the AGV system. We mathematically describe the transport process as a dynamical system using an ad hoc mixed...journal article 2023
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Meo, Cristian (author), Franzese, G. (author), Pezzato, C. (author), Spahn, M. (author), Lanillos, Pablo (author)Adaptation to external and internal changes is of major importance for robotic systems in uncertain environments. Here, we present a novel multisensory active inference (AIF) torque controller for industrial arms that shows how prediction can be used to resolve adaptation. Our controller, inspired by the predictive brain hypothesis, improves...journal article 2023
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Pustina, P. (author), Borja, Pablo (author), Della Santina, C. (author), De Luca, Alessandro (author)Soft robots are intrinsically underactuated mechanical systems that operate under uncertainties and disturbances. In these conditions, this letter proposes two versions of PID-like control laws with a saturated integral action for the particularly challenging shape regulation task. The closed-loop system is asymptotically stabilized and...journal article 2023
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Robust Jumping with an Articulated Soft Quadruped via Trajectory Optimization and Iterative LearningDing, J. (author), Sels, Mees A.van Loben (author), Angelini, Franco (author), Kober, J. (author), Della Santina, C. (author)Quadrupeds deployed in real-world scenarios need to be robust to unmodelled dynamic effects. In this work, we aim to increase the robustness of quadrupedal periodic forward jumping (i.e., pronking) by unifying cutting-edge model-based trajectory optimization and iterative learning control. Using a reduced-order soft anchor model, the...journal article 2023
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Ferranti, L. (author), Lyons, L. (author), Negenborn, R.R. (author), Keviczky, T. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author)This work presents a method for multi-robot coordination based on a novel distributed nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) formulation for trajectory optimization and its modified version to mitigate the effects of packet losses and delays in the communication among the robots. Our algorithms consider that each robot is equipped with an...journal article 2023
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Spahn, M. (author), Wisse, M. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author)Optimization fabrics are a geometric approach to real-time local motion generation, where motions are designed by the composition of several differential equations that exhibit a desired motion behavior. We generalize this framework to dynamic scenarios and nonholonomic robots and prove that fundamental properties can be conserved. We show...journal article 2023
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Trumic, Maja (author), Della Santina, C. (author), Jovanovic, Kosta (author), Fagiolini, Adriano (author)This letter investigates the stability properties of the soft inverted pendulum with affine curvature - a template model for nonlinear control of underactuated soft robots. We look at how changes in physical parameters affect stability and equilibrium. We give conditions under which zero dynamics corresponding to a collocated choice of the...journal article 2023
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Coggins, T.N. (author), Steinert, S. (author)Many researchers from robotics, machine ethics, and adjacent fields seem to assume that norms represent good behavior that social robots should learn to benefit their users and society. We would like to complicate this view and present seven key troubles with norm-compliant robots: (1) norm biases, (2) paternalism (3) tyrannies of the majority, ...journal article 2023
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Liu, Xinjie (author), Peters, L. (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author)Many autonomous agents, such as intelligent vehicles, are inherently required to interact with one another. Game theory provides a natural mathematical tool for robot motion planning in such interactive settings. However, tractable algorithms for such problems usually rely on a strong assumption, namely that the objectives of all players in...journal article 2023
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Field Model Identification and Control of a Mobile Electromagnet for Remote Actuation of Soft RobotsRiccardi, A. (author), Furtado, Guilherme P. (author), Sikorski, Jakub (author), Vendittelli, Marilena (author), Misra, Sarthak (author)The actuation of miniaturized robots through external magnetic fields has great potential for medical applications. The controllability properties of the miniaturized robots are affected by magnetic field generation modality. In this work, the magnetic field of a mobile electromagnet, notably capable to generate a desired magnetic field in...journal article 2023
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Pore, Ameya (author), Li, Z. (author), Dall'Alba, Diego (author), Hernansanz, Albert (author), De Momi, Elena (author), Menciassi, Arianna (author), Casals Gelpi, Alicia (author), Dankelman, J. (author), Fiorini, Paolo (author), Poorten, Emmanuel Vander (author)Increased demand for less invasive procedures has accelerated the adoption of Intraluminal Procedures (IP) and Endovascular Interventions (EI) performed through body lumens and vessels. As navigation through lumens and vessels is quite complex, interest grows to establish autonomous navigation techniques for IP and EI for reaching the target...journal article 2023
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Angelini, Franco (author), Angelini, Pierangela (author), Angiolini, Claudia (author), Bagella, Simonetta (author), Caccianiga, Marco (author), Della Santina, C. (author), Gigante, Daniela (author), Hutter, Marco (author), Nanayakkara, Thrishantha (author)In this paper, we first discuss the challenges related to habitat monitoring and review possible robotic solutions. Then, we propose a framework to perform terrestrial habitat monitoring exploiting the mobility of legged robotic systems. The idea is to provide the robot with the Natural Intelligence introduced as the combination of the...journal article 2023
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Botros, Alexander (author), Gilhuly, Barry (author), Wilde, N. (author), Sadeghi, Armin (author), Alonso-Mora, J. (author), Smith, Stephen L. (author)We study the problem of deploying a fleet of mobile robots to service tasks that arrive stochastically over time and at random locations in an environment. This is known as the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem (DVRP) and requires robots to allocate incoming tasks among themselves and find an optimal sequence for each robot. State-of-the-art...journal article 2023