Giving robots the ability to autonomously move around in various real-world environments has been a major goal of AI (artificial intelligence) for quite some time. To this end it is vital for robots to be able to perceive their surroundings in 3D; they must be able to estimate the range of obstacles in their path. Animals nav iga te th rough va r ious uncon t ro l l ed environments with seeming...

although construction has been known as a highly complex application field for autonomous robotic systems, recent advances in this field offer great hope for using robotic capabilities to develop automated construction. today, space research agencies seek to build infrastructures without human intervention, and construction companies look to robots with the potential to improve construction qua...

Harnessing flight strategies refined by millions of years of evolution can help expedite the design of more efficient, manoeuvrable and robust flying robots. This review synthesizes recent advances and highlights remaining gaps in our understanding of how bird and bat wing adaptations enable effective flight. Included in this discussion is an evaluation of how current robotic analogues measure ...

The application of GNC devices on small robots is a game-changer that enables these robots to be mobile on low-gravity planetary surfaces and small bodies. Use of reaction wheels enables these robots to roll, hop, summersault and rest on precarious/sloped surfaces that would otherwise not be possible with conventional wheeled robots. We are extending this technology to enable robots to climb of...

Two pieces of information are absolutely required to locate a source of chemicals from a distance. The first and most obvious is the presence of the chemical cue, and the second is the direction of the flow of air or water carrying the chemicals. Insects orienting to wind while walking in terrestrial environments appear to use the mechanical deflection of their antennae to detect the direction ...

Cooperative object manipulation control of rigid-flexible multi-body systems in space is studied in this paper. During such tasks, flexible members like solar panels may get vibrated that in turn may lead to some oscillatory disturbing forces on other subsystems, and consequently produces error in the motion of the end-effectors of the cooperative manipulating arms. Therefore, to design and dev...

This paper deals with the problem of deploying a team of flying robots to perform surveillance-coverage missions over a terrain of arbitrary morphology. In such missions, a key factor for the successful completion of the mission is the knowledge of the terrain’s morphology. The focus of this paper is on the implementation of a two-step procedure that allows us to optimally align a team of flyin...