Journal: IEEE Transactions on Robotics

Abbreviation

IEEE Trans. Robot.

Publisher

IEEE

Journal Volumes

ISSN

1552-3098
1042-296X
1941-0468

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Publications 1 - 10 of 79
  • Reproducibility in the Control of Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand Systems
    Item type: Journal Article
    Li, Xinling; Alharbi, Meshal; Gammelli, Daniele; et al. (2026)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand (AMoD) systems, powered by advances in robotics, control, and Machine Learning (ML), offer a promising paradigm for future urban transportation. AMoD offers fast and personalized travel services by leveraging centralized control of autonomous vehicle fleets to optimize operations and enhance service performance. However, the rapid growth of this field has outpaced the development of standardized practices for evaluating and reporting results, leading to significant challenges in reproducibility. As AMoD control algorithms become increasingly complex and data-driven, a lack of transparency in modeling assumptions, experimental setups, and algorithmic implementation hinders scientific progress and undermines confidence in the results. This paper presents a systematic study of reproducibility in AMoD research. We identify key components across the research pipeline, spanning system modeling, control problems, simulation design, algorithm specification, and evaluation, and analyze common sources of irreproducibility. We survey prevalent practices in the literature, highlight gaps, and propose a structured framework to assess and improve reproducibility. While focused on AMoD, the principles and practices we advocate generalize to a broader class of cyber-physical systems that rely on networked autonomy and data-driven control. This work aims to lay the foundation for a more transparent and reproducible research culture in the design and deployment of intelligent mobility systems.
  • Spatio-Temporal Motion Retargeting for Quadruped Robots
    Item type: Journal Article
    Yoon, Taerim; Kang, Dongho; Kim, Seungmin; et al. (2025)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    This work presents a motion retargeting approach for legged robots, aimed at transferring the dynamic and agile movements to robots from source motions. In particular, we guide the imitation learning procedures by transferring motions from source to target, effectively bridging the morphological disparities while ensuring the physical feasibility of the target system. In the first stage, we focus on motion retargeting at the kinematic level by generating kinematically feasible whole-body motions from keypoint trajectories. Following this, we refine the motion at the dynamic level by adjusting it in the temporal domain while adhering to physical constraints. This process facilitates policy training via reinforcement learning, enabling precise and robust motion tracking. We demonstrate that our approach successfully transforms noisy motion sources, such as hand-held camera videos, into robot-specific motions that align with the morphology and physical properties of the target robots. Moreover, we demonstrate terrain-aware motion retargeting to perform BackFlip on top of a box. We successfully deployed these skills to four robots with different dimensions and physical properties in the real world through hardware experiments.
  • Design, Modeling and Control of AVOCADO: A Multimodal Aerial-Tethered Robot for Tree Canopy Exploration
    Item type: Journal Article
    Kirchgeorg, Steffen; Aucone, Emanuele; Wenk, Florian; et al. (2024)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    Forests provide vital resources and services for humanity, but preserving and restoring them is challenging due to the difficulty of obtaining actionable data, especially in inaccessible areas such as forest canopies. To address this, we follow the lead of arboreal animals that exploit multiple modes of locomotion.We combine aerial and tethered movements to enable AVOCADO to navigate with in a tree canopy.Starting from the top of a tree, it can descend with the tether and maneuver around obstacles with thrusters. We extend our previous work with a new mechanical design with a protective shell, increased computational power and cameras for state estimation. We introduce a dynamic model and simulation, and perform a quasi-static and dynamic validation. For autonomy, we derive a control framework in simulation to regulate tether length,tilt and heading, before transfer to the robot. We evaluate the controllers for trajectory tracking through experiments. AVOCADO can follow trajectories around obstacles and reject disturbances on the tether. Exploiting multimodal mobility will advance the exploration of tree canopies to actively monitor the true value of our forests.
  • ANYexo 2.0: A Fully-Actuated Upper-Limb Exoskeleton for Manipulation and Joint-Oriented Training in all Stages of Rehabilitation
    Item type: Journal Article
    Zimmermann, Yves; Sommerhalder, Michael; Wolf, Peter; et al. (2023)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    We developed an exoskeleton for neurorehabilitation that covered all relevant degrees of freedom of the human arm while providing enough range of motion, speed, strength, and haptic-rendering function for therapy of severely affected (e.g., mobilization) and mildly affected patients (e.g., strength and speed). The ANYexo 2.0, uniting these capabilities, could be the vanguard for highly versatile therapeutic robotics applicable to a broad target group and an extensive range of exercises. Thus, supporting the practical adoption of these devices in clinics. The unique kinematic structure of the robot and the bio-inspired controlled shoulder coupling allowed training for most activities of daily living. We demonstrated this capability with 15 sample activities, including interaction with real objects and the own body with the robot in transparent mode. The robot’s joints can reach 200%, 398%, and 354% of the speed required during activities of daily living at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist, respectively. Further, the robot can provide isometric strength training. We present a detailed analysis of the kinematic properties and propose algorithms for intuitive control implementation.
  • Continuous-Time State Estimation Methods in Robotics: A Survey
    Item type: Journal Article
    Talbot, William; Nubert, Julian; Tuna, Turcan; et al. (2025)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    Accurate, efficient, and robust state estimation is more important than ever in robotics as the variety of platforms and complexity of tasks continue to grow. Historically, discrete-time filters and smoothers have been the dominant approach, in which the estimated variables are states at discrete sample times. The paradigm of continuous-time state estimation proposes an alternative strategy by estimating variables that express the state as a continuous function of time, which can be evaluated at any query time. Not only can this benefit downstream tasks such as planning and control, but it also significantly increases estimator performance and flexibility, as well as reduces sensor preprocessing and interfacing complexity. Despite this, continuous-time methods remain underutilized, potentially because they are less well-known within robotics. To remedy this, this work presents a unifying formulation of these methods and the most exhaustive literature review to date, systematically categorizing prior work by methodology, application, state variables, historical context, and theoretical contribution to the field. By surveying splines and Gaussian process together and contextualizing works from other research domains, this work identifies and analyzes open problems in continuous-time state estimation and suggests new research directions.
  • Active Interaction Force Control for Contact-Based Inspection with a Fully Actuated Aerial Vehicle
    Item type: Journal Article
    Bodie, Karen; Brunner, Maximilian; Pantic, Michael; et al. (2021)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    This article presents and validates active interaction force control and planning for fully actuated and omnidirectional aerial manipulation platforms, with the goal of aerial contact inspection in unstructured environments. We present a variable axis-selective impedance control which integrates direct force control for intentional interaction, using feedback from an on-board force sensor. The control approach aims to reject disturbances in free flight, while handling unintentional interaction and actively controlling desired interaction forces. A fully actuated and omnidirectional tilt-rotor aerial system is used to show capabilities of the control and planning methods. Experiments demonstrate disturbance rejection, push-and-slide interaction, and force-controlled interaction in different flight orientations. The system is validated as a tool for nondestructive testing of concrete infrastructure, and statistical results of interaction control performance are presented and discussed.
  • Cooperative Collision Avoidance for Nonholonomic Robots
    Item type: Journal Article
    Alonso-Mora, Javier; Beardsley, Paul; Siegwart, Roland (2018)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
  • Modeling magnetic torque and force for controlled manipulation of soft-magnetic bodies
    Item type: Journal Article
    Abbott, Jake J.; Ergeneman, Olgaç; Kummer, Michael P.; et al. (2007)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
  • A Survey on Swarm Microrobotics
    Item type: Journal Article
    Yang, Lidong; Yu, Jiangfan; Yang, Shihao; et al. (2022)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
    The small size and wireless actuation of microrobots make them potential candidates for minimally invasive medicine. To advance microrobots to future clinical application, microrobotics researchers have investigated a number of key issues, in which swarm control is a primary challenge and is attracting increasing attention. As a single microrobot has limited volume and surface area, clinically relevant tasks, including in-vivo tracking, usually require simultaneous control of a large swarm of microrobots. Unlike macroscale robots, implementing on-board actuators and sensors for microrobots is challenging, which differentiates swarm microrobotics from other swarm robotics approaches. This article systematically summarizes the state of the art for this emerging field, including actuation systems with different power sources, swarm behaviors modeling and simulation, swarm control strategies, and targeted biomedical applications. Actuation principles of microrobot swarms are categorized in detail, and critical comparisons are made to provide guidance and insight for future swarm microrobotics researchers. Considering the unique features of swarm microrobotics compared to traditional swarm robotics, this article also emphasizes the modeling, simulation, and control of microrobot swarms. Furthermore, recent biomedical applications of microrobot swarms are summarized to illustrate specific application scenarios. Finally, we provide an assessment of the future directions of swarm microrobotics.
  • Gain Scheduling Control for a Class of Variable Stiffness Actuators Based on Lever Mechanisms
    Item type: Journal Article
    Sardellitti, I.; Medrano-Cerda, G. A.; Tsagarakis, N.; et al. (2013)
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Publications 1 - 10 of 79