# IEEE Transactions on Robotics

### Early Access Articles

Early Access articles are made available in advance of the final electronic or print versions. Early Access articles are peer reviewed but may not be fully edited. They are fully citable from the moment they appear in IEEE Xplore.

## Filter Results

Displaying Results 1 - 25 of 36
• ### Task-Space Control of Articulated Mobile Robots With a Soft Gripper for Operations

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (4082 KB)

A task-space method is presented for the control of a head-raising articulated mobile robot, allowing the trajectory tracking of a tip of a gripper located on the head of the robot in various operations, e.g., picking up an object and rotating a valve. If the robot cannot continue moving because it reaches a joint angle limit, the robot moves away from the joint limit and changes posture by switch... View full abstract»

• ### Efficient, Multifidelity Perceptual Representations Via Hierarchical Gaussian Mixture Models

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 13
| | PDF (6605 KB)

This paper presents a probabilistic environment representation that allows efficient high-fidelity modeling and inference toward enabling informed planning (active perception) on a computationally constrained mobile autonomous system. The proposed approach exploits the fact that real-world environments inherently possess structure that introduces dependencies between spatially distinct locations. ... View full abstract»

• ### Learning Task Priorities From Demonstrations

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 17
| | PDF (4250 KB)

Bimanual operations in humanoids offer the possibility to carry out more than one manipulation task at the same time, which in turn introduces the problem of task prioritization. We address this problem from a learning from demonstration perspective, by extending the task-parameterized Gaussian mixture model to Jacobian and null space structures. The proposed approach is tested on bimanual skills ... View full abstract»

• ### Modeling Tube Clearance and Bounding the Effect of Friction in Concentric Tube Robot Kinematics

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 18
| | PDF (4289 KB)

The shape of a concentric tube robot depends not only on the relative rotations and translations of its constituent tubes, but also on the history of relative tube displacements. Existing mechanics-based models neglect all history-dependent phenomena with the result that when calibrated on experimental data collected over a robot’s workspace, the maximum tip position error can exceed 8 mm for a 20... View full abstract»

• ### Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Closed-Loop Dynamic Control of Soft Robotic Manipulators

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 11
| | PDF (3782 KB) |  Media

Dynamic control of soft robotic manipulators is an open problem yet to be well explored and analyzed. Most of the current applications of soft robotic manipulators utilize static or quasi-dynamic controllers based on kinematic models or linearity in the joint space. However, such approaches are not truly exploiting the rich dynamics of a soft-bodied system. In this paper, we present a model-based ... View full abstract»

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (7250 KB) |  Media

We have extended the task-space multiobjective controllers that write as quadratic programs (QPs) to handle multirobot systems as a single centralized control. The idea is to assemble all the “robots” models and their interaction task constraints into a single QP formulation. By multirobot, we mean that whatever entities a given robot will interact with (solid or articulated systems, actuated, par... View full abstract»

• ### Attention and Anticipation in Fast Visual-Inertial Navigation

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 20
| | PDF (2819 KB)

We study a visual-inertial navigation (VIN) problem in which a robot needs to estimate its state using an on-board camera and an inertial sensor, without any prior knowledge of the external environment. We consider the case in which the robot can allocate limited resources to VIN, due to tight computational constraints. Therefore, we answer the following question: under limited resources, what are... View full abstract»

• ### Design of an Electromagnetic Setup for Independent Three-Dimensional Control of Pairs of Identical and Nonidentical Microrobots

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (3411 KB) |  Media

Independent control of microrobots is a cardinal challenge for manipulation at micro/nano scale. In this paper, we design and assemble an electromagnetic setup to overcome some of the major obstacles in the independent control of microrobots. The demanding magnetic requirements are met by the presented experimental testbed that is able to produce magnetic fields and gradients of, respectively, 160... View full abstract»

• ### Dynamic Control of Parallel Robots Driven by Flexible Cables and Actuated by Position-Controlled Winches

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 8
| | PDF (1116 KB) |  Media

An alternative approach to standard computed torque with feedback linearization is proposed in this paper to control cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs) with highly flexible cables. Exteroceptive feedback is used to measure the end-effector Cartesian position at a high sampling rate. Stability is demonstrated using singular perturbation theory. The proposed control scheme is experimentally valida... View full abstract»

• ### Visual Servoing With Photometric Gaussian Mixtures as Dense Feature

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 15
| | PDF (9198 KB) |  Media

The direct use of the entire photometric image information as dense feature for visual servoing brings several advantages. First, it does not require any feature detection, matching, or tracking process. Thanks to the redundancy of visual information, the precision at convergence is really accurate. However, the corresponding highly nonlinear cost function reduces the convergence domain. In this p... View full abstract»

• ### Robust Ballistic Catching: A Hybrid System Stabilization Problem

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 16
| | PDF (3166 KB) |  Media

This paper addresses a remaining gap between today’s academic catching robots and their future in industrial applications: reliable task execution. A novel parameterization is derived to reduce the three-dimensional (3-D) catching problem to 1-D on the ballistic flight path. Vice versa, an efficient dynamical system formulation allows reconstruction of solutions from 1-D to 3-D. Hence, the body of... View full abstract»

• ### Navigation Functions With Time-Varying Destination Manifolds in Star Worlds

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (2923 KB)

This paper formally constructs navigation functions with time-varying destinations on star worlds. The construction is based on appropriate diffeomorphic transformations and extends an earlier sphere-world formulation. A new obstacle modeling method is also introduced, reducing analytical complexity and offering unified expressions of common classes of$n$-dimensional ... View full abstract»

• ### Canny-VO: Visual Odometry With RGB-D Cameras Based on Geometric 3-D–2-D Edge Alignment

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 16
| | PDF (4167 KB) |  Media

This paper reviews the classical problem of free-form curve registration and applies it to an efficient RGB-D visual odometry system called Canny-VO, as it efficiently tracks all Canny edge features extracted from the images. Two replacements for the distance transformation commonly used in edge registration are proposed: approximate nearest neighbor fields and oriented nearest neighbor fields. 3-... View full abstract»

• ### Supervisory Control of Multirotor Vehicles in Challenging Conditions Using Inertial Measurements

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (3975 KB)

We consider the problem in which a supervisor or remote pilot provides a real-time linear velocity reference to a multirotor aerial robot, either through a traditional remote control handset, a modern haptic interface, or semi-autonomous guidance control system. In all such cases, the goal is to servo-control the vehicle’s velocity to the set point as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The ch... View full abstract»

• ### Human–Robot Collaborative Site Inspection Under Resource Constraints

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 16
| | PDF (2326 KB)

This paper is on human–robot collaborative site inspection and target classification. We consider the realistic case that human visual performance is imperfect (depending on the sensory input quality), and that the robot has constraints in communication with human (e.g., limited chances for query, poor channel quality). The robot has limited onboard motion and communication energy and operates in ... View full abstract»

• ### Robot–Robot Gesturing for Anchoring Representations

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 15
| | PDF (7299 KB)

In a multirobot system, using shared symbols for objects in the environment is a prerequisite for collaboration. Sharing symbols requires that each agent has anchored a symbol with an internal, sensor level representation, as well as that these symbols match between the agents. The problem can be solved easily when the internal representations can be communicated between the agents. However, with ... View full abstract»

• ### Discrete Cosserat Approach for Multisection Soft Manipulator Dynamics

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 16
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (4263 KB) |  Media

Nowadays, the most adopted model for the design and control of soft robots is the piecewise constant curvature model, with its consolidated benefits and drawbacks. In this work, an alternative model for multisection soft manipulator dynamics is presented based on a discrete Cosserat approach, in which the continuous Cosserat model is discretized by assuming a piecewise constant strain along the so... View full abstract»

• ### Positive–Negative Stiffness Actuators

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 12
| | PDF (1367 KB)

Compliant actuators are typically designed to possess a tunable positive stiffness characteristic in order to generate restoring force upon displacement. These actuators either require two independent motor units or closed-loop control to change both their equilibrium position and output stiffness. The introduction of negative stiffness, in combination with tunable positive stiffness, may reduce t... View full abstract»

• ### Real-Time Robotic Manipulation of Cylindrical Objects in Dynamic Scenarios Through Elliptic Shape Primitives

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 19
| | PDF (11554 KB) |  Media

Robotic manipulation employs the object detection in images to create a scene awareness and locate an object's pose. In dynamic scenarios, fast multiobject detection and tracking are crucial. Many objects commonly found in household and industrial environments are represented by cylindrical shapes. Thus, it is available for robots to manipulate them through the real-time detection of elliptic shap... View full abstract»

• ### Generalized Ray-Based Lattice Generation and Graph Representation of Wrench-Closure Workspace for Arbitrary Cable-Driven Robots

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 15
| | PDF (1521 KB)

This paper presents a new generalized ray-based approach to the generation and representation of the wrench-closure workspace (WCW) for cable-driven robots (CDRs). Existing WCW studies have yet to address two significant problems, first is the lack of a generalized approach to generate the WCW with continuity information for all degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) and arbitrary CDRs, and second is a workspa... View full abstract»

• ### Localization in Densely Packed Swarms Using Interrobot Collisions as a Sensing Modality

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 14
| | PDF (1513 KB) |  Media

As the size of robots decreases in multirobot systems, collisions cease to be catastrophic events that need to be avoided at all costs. This implies that less conservative, coordinated control strategies can be employed, where collisions are not only tolerated, but can potentially be harnessed as an information source. In this paper, we follow this line of inquiry by employing collisions as a sens... View full abstract»

• ### Clock-Torqued Rolling SLIP Model and Its Application to Variable-Speed Running in a Hexapod Robot

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 9
| | PDF (4587 KB) |  Media

In this paper, we report on the development of the clock-torqued rolling spring loaded inverted pendulum (CTR-SLIP) model. The new model, which adds clock-based torque control on the leg orientation of the previously developed R-SLIP model, has two advantages: first, regulating the model to follow its passive dynamic running (i.e., at a fixed point) significantly increases the model's basin of att... View full abstract»

• ### Customizable Three-Dimensional-Printed Origami Soft Robotic Joint With Effective Behavior Shaping for Safe Interactions

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 10
| | PDF (4279 KB) |  Media

Fast-growing interests in safe and effective robot–environment interactions stimulated global investigations on soft robotics. The inherent compliance of soft robots ensures promising safety features but drastically reduces force capability, thereby complicating system modeling and control. To tackle these limitations, a soft robotic joint with enhanced strength, servo performance, and impact beha... View full abstract»

• ### Predictive Inverse Kinematics for Redundant Manipulators With Task Scaling and Kinematic Constraints

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 8
| | PDF (994 KB)

The paper presents a fast online predictive method to solve the task-priority differential inverse kinematics of redundant manipulators under kinematic constraints. It implements a task-scaling technique to preserve the desired geometrical task, when the trajectory is infeasible for the robot capabilities. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology. View full abstract»

• ### Safe Testing of Electrical Diathermy Cutting Using a New Generation Soft Manipulator

Publication Year: 2018, Page(s):1 - 8
| | PDF (2318 KB) |  Media

The first demonstration of a pneumatic soft continuum robot is integrated in series with a rigid robot arm, safely performing teleoperated diathermic tissue-cutting. The rigid arm autonomously maintains a safe tool contact force, while the soft arm manually follows the desired cutting path. Ex-vivo experimentation demonstrates submillimetric deviations from target paths. View full abstract»

## Aims & Scope

IEEE Transactions on Robotics covers both theory and applications on topics including: kinematics, dynamics, control, and simulation of robots and intelligent machines and systems.

Full Aims & Scope

## Meet Our Editors

Editor-in-Chief

Kevin Lynch
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL, USA
ieee-tro@northwestern.edu