Roboticist
We present a novel method enabling robots to quickly learn to manipulate objects by leveraging a motion planner to generate “expert” training trajectories from a small amount of human-labeled data. In contrast to the traditional sense-plan-act cycle, we propose a …
Science Robotics, 2018. The theoretical ability of modular robots to reconfigure in response to complex tasks in a priori unknown environments has frequently been cited as an advantage and remains a major motivator for work in the field. We present a …
Featured on IEEE Spectrum and TechCrunch! We present a system enabling a modular robot to autonomously build structures in order to accomplish high-level tasks. Building structures allows the robot to surmount large obstacles, expanding the set of tasks it can …
The PaintPot manufacturing process is a new way to create low-cost, low-profile, highly customizable potentiometers for position sensing in robotic applications. It uses widely accessible materials, requires no special expertise, and creates custom potentiometers in a variety of shapes and …
Conference Highlight Talk. We present the EP-Face connector, a novel connector for hybrid chain-lattice type modular robots that is high- strength (88.4N), compact, fast, power efficient, and robust to position errors.
Best Systems Paper, RSS 2016. In this paper, we present an end-to-end system for addressing tasks with modular robots, and demonstrate that it is capable of accomplishing challenging multi-part tasks in hardware experiments.
SMORES-EP is a modular robot designed and built at the University of Pennsylvania, and used by researchers at Penn and Cornell. SMORES stands for Self-Assembling MOdular Robot for Extreme Shapeshifting, and EP refers to the Electro-Permanent magnets the modules use to …
To take full advantage of the flexibility of a modular robot system, users must be able to create and verify new configurations and behaviors quickly. We have developed a design framework that facilitates rapid creation of new configurations and behaviors …
We have developed an algorithm that automatically detects embeddability of modular robot configurations. Simply put, a given design embeds another design if it can replicate its structure, and therefore simulate its functionality. We introduce a novel graph representation for modular …
http://modlabupenn.org/tactically-expandable-marine-platform-t-e-m-p/