Civil & Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University’s Post

Our latest publication targeted '𝗦𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝘆 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀'. Robust motion planning in highly dynamic environments affected by challenging conditions remains an important task for autonomous robots, and an open problem for the robotics community. This paper proposes significant extensions to the elastic band method that gives more robustness to uncertainty in state and tracking performance, and a way to avoid fast-moving obstacles that may move multiple times faster than the vehicle in an efficient and non-conservative way. Particularly, we temporally enhance the algorithm, address future collisions spatiotemporally with continuous guarantees, and adapt the required safety clearance dynamically to address disturbances, control errors, and uncertainty. To validate the proposed method, results from a simulation study are presented, demonstrating the ability to safely plan trajectories in dynamic environments. The motion planner is lightweight and remarkably computationally efficient, with replanning orders of magnitudes faster than real-time needs by reaching and surpassing 1000Hz. https://lnkd.in/dU766sct Herman Biørn Amundsen, Marios Xanthidis, Martin Føre, Eleni Kelasidi, SINTEF Ocean, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) The worked performed within two projects (CHANGE and ResiFarm) funded from Norges forskningsråd.

M. Ani Hsieh, Deputy Director of GRASP Lab and Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), works with researchers to build robot teams that work efficiently and reliably in specific environments. The Scalable Autonomous Robots (ScalAR) Lab is an interdisciplinary lab focused on fundamental research problems in robotics that lie at the intersection of robotics, nonlinear dynamical systems theory, and uncertainty. "I hope our group will be able to develop robotics and automation solutions that will enable us to tackle some of the most pressing climate-related challenges facing the world," states Hsieh. Watch the full video to learn more about ScalAR at the GRASP Lab. https://lnkd.in/eJNN2mXd

Congratulations Giacomo Romano! This week Giacomo graduated with full marks 🎖 with a thesis on coordinated grasping of cooperating robots 🤝. 🎯 Why is his thesis so important? ✔ It allows for new #ROS-based applications where multiple robots need to coordinate their grasp actuation to effectively accomplish a shared task ✔ It enables dynamic simulations of cooperative robotic transportation tasks, shortening the gap between real-world robots and their simulated twins 🎬 What does he show in the video? ⭕ An experiment demonstrating coordinated, as well as independent actuation of two pneumatic parallel grippers through a custom-designed ROS architecture ⭕ A simulated experiment of cooperative transportation where both robot and contact dynamics are realistic, robots and grippers are under interaction control, and kinematic redundancy is managed Best wishes to Giacomo for his future career! 🎉 👍 Like us on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dhTJ6GxP 🌐 Check out other thesis projects with the #AutomaticControlGroup: https://lnkd.in/dN8SiSgC #UNISA #DIEM #robotics

🐐🤖 More elastic/soft/compliant/... jumping quadrupeds! 🤖🐐 Goats, they are never enough! 🤩 🔍 In "Impact-Aware Jumping Planning and Control for Quadrupedal Robots with Parallel Elasticity," we explore how explosive jumps can be generated by exploiting parallel elasticity in quadruped systems. ⚙️🌀 The robot that you see in the video is equipped with parallel springs acting on all its joints, like the compliant tendons of the natural goat 🐐 🧵 The work is part of a thread of ongoing efforts involving looking at the challenge of quadrupedal jumping from multiple points of view 🐐 🔬Here, we look at it using a first-principle strategy, while in previous works (see below 👇 in the comments), we considered learning-based methods. 🧠 📝 Key enabling innovations are an actuated spring-loaded inverted pendulum model, a kino-dynamic trajectory optimizer for explosive 3D jumps, and an optimization-based landing strategy. This approach ensures stable and efficient maneuvers and effectively manages the complexities of the landing dynamics. 🌟 Our work is included in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)'s special issue on Impact-Aware Robotics. A big thanks to Alessandro Saccon, Michael Posa, Abderrahmane Kheddar, Yan Gu for organizing it! 🎓 jiatao ding spearheaded the project, with significant contributions from Vassil Atanassov and Edoardo Panichi, who were at the time MSc students here at Delft University of Technology, and Jens Kober. 🔗 Read more about our findings here: https://lnkd.in/g35JthPe TU Delft | Mechanical Engineering Natural Intelligence #Robotics #ImpactAwareRobotics #ParallelElasticity

The new legged robot is here! 👋 We’d love to present the first shot of the newest revision of the Honey Badger Quadrupedal Robot - made to meet the needs of traversing rough terrain in harsh environments. It’s an important milestone for us, and a step to the next level with the technology - both in terms of hardware and control software. On top of that, we developed an upgraded, biologically inspired research version - with the fully controlled flexible spine. The robots equipped with the spine will be used by researchers from Poznan University of Technology and Technical University of Darmstadt 🤖 We are very excited to showcase these robots, and we'll publish some videos soon! Follow us! #robotics #technology #industry #engineering #automation

New Paper (IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters) 👉 "Tumbling Locomotion of Tetrahedral Soft-limbed Robots" In this letter, we propose an unconventional locomotion method for soft robots called "Tumbling". This approach leverages the unique compliance and deformability of soft robots, enhancing their agility and ability to correct orientation on the fly. By strategically shifting the robot's center of gravity, we've unlocked this movement that's not only effective but also conserves energy significantly. Paper: https://lnkd.in/ggGywDtJ Coauthors: Dulanjana Perera, Dr. Umer Huzaifa, PhD, Dr. Iyad Kanj, and Dr. Isuru Godage DePaul University Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media Department of Engineering Technology & Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering at Texas A&M University Texas A&M University College of Engineering Texas A&M University National Science Foundation (NSF) #robotics  #softrobotics  #biorobotics #research

"Schools of fish, colonies of bees, and murmurations of starlings exhibit swarming behavior in nature, flowing like a liquid in synchronized, shape-shifting coordination. Through the lens of fluid mechanics, swarming is of particular interest to physicists like Heinrich Jaeger, the University of Chicago Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor in Physics and the James Franck Institute, and James Franck Institute research staff scientist Baudouin Saintyves, who apply physics principles to the development of modular, adaptive robotics. A swarm's ability to flow like liquid, act in concert without a leader, and react to its environment inspired Saintyves and Jaeger's latest creation, which they call the "Granulobot." It can split apart, reassemble, and reorganize to adapt to its environment. And depending on its configuration, it can act like either a rigid solid or a flowing liquid. The aggregate system "blurs the distinction between soft, modular, and swarm robotics," says the team." #robotics #robots

Researchers at Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC) in Manufacturing and On-Wing Technology at the University of Nottingham have developed ultra-thin soft robots, designed for exploring narrow spaces in challenging built environments. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. These advanced robots, featuring multimodal locomotion capabilities, are set to transform the way industries, such as power plants, bridges and aero engines, conduct inspections and maintenance. The innovative robots, known as Thin Soft Robots (TS-Robots), boast a thin thickness of just 1.7mm, enabling them to access and navigate in confined spaces, such as millimeter-wide gaps beneath doors or within complex machinery. TS-Robots are equipped with a unique sandwich structure driven by dielectric elastomers, allowing them to crawl, climb, swim, and transition between solid and liquid domains. This adaptability makes them ideal for complex environments that include multiple obstacles across various terrains. Dr. Xin Dong, the project's principal investigator, who initialized the idea, said, "Our TS-Robots are designed to tackle the scientific challenges of multimodal locomotion in soft robotics, particularly when encountering obstacles such as narrow gaps, trenches, walls, and liquids along their navigation paths. "Unlike conventional robots, which face significant limitations in these environments, our technology offers a potential breakthrough for exploring difficult and complex terrains." Notably, the Thin Soft Robots exhibit outstanding performance in terms of output force and speed, achieving forces up to 41 times their weight and speeds of 1.16 times their body length per second. #robotics #inspection #maintenence #locomotion #breakthrough https://lnkd.in/gR-G6r34

🌟 Exciting Update from IFRA-Cranfield! 🌟 Last August, Dr Seemal Asif CENG FHEA MIET and our researcher Mikel Bueno Viso had the opportunity to present our latest research at the ROS-Industrial Developers Meeting (ROS-Industrial Europe). The presentation covered our groundbreaking work on ROS 2-Framework for a Flexible and Reconfigurable Robot Cell Design. 🔍 About the Research: Today's robot manipulators are often designed for specific, prolonged tasks, which limits their flexibility and reconfiguration capabilities. Our research at IFRA-Cranfield aims to overcome this limitation by developing a ROS 2-based software framework that supports hardware/software-agnostic and fully reconfigurable robotic systems. This framework facilitates: - Seamless integration of various robots, automation tools, and AI. - Consistent and intuitive control of robot arms, irrespective of their manufacturer or model. - Fast reconfiguration of robotic systems to adapt to changing production demands and market dynamics. 🎯 Our goal in presenting this work was to share the latest advancements in ROS 2 for the simulation and control of robot manipulators. You can explore more about our work through the IFRA-Cranfield/ros2_SimRealRobotControl repository on our GitHub page, which includes ROS 2 packages for the simulation and control of various robot arms. 📽️ Watch the full presentation on the ROS-Industrial YouTube channel: https://lnkd.in/eQMni3pJ It’s a pleasure for us at IFRA Cranfield to contribute to the ROS 2 community with our research, and we look forward to continued collaboration with ROS-Industrial. 🔧 Call to Action: We encourage the Robotics & Automation Research Community to join us in advancing intelligent and flexible robot simulation and control technologies using ROS 2! #Robotics #Automation #ROS2 #IFRACranfield #Manufacturing #Innovation #RobotControl #ReconfigurableSystems #Research Cranfield University

While many human bodies can easily walk, run and jump, these processes are surprisingly complicated for robots. At the UW, a multidisciplinary research team including University of Washington, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering professor Sam Burden, is figuring out why. Researchers examined the engineering subsystems involved in robotic-legged locomotion and made a surprising discovery – although robotic components were almost always superior to biological ones, as a unified whole, animals were significantly better at these types of movements. “It is not the quality of robotic components that explains this wide performance gap, but rather, how they are put together into a unified whole,” says Burden. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gaWjNDpp #UWInnovationMonth2024 #UWInnovates