Standard robot morphologies, including quadrupeds, 7-DOF arms, and multirotors, have become commercialized and widespread as general-purpose systems with well-studied dynamics and a wide variety of easy-to-use toolboxes. On the other hand, unconventional robot designs can unlock new capabilities, improve performance, and enable robots to operate in challenging and unstructured environments. Examples range from exploratory robots for space and earth science, to modular robots for construction and transportation, to soft robots for medical applications and human interaction. However, unconventional robots are often underactuated or high-degree-of-freedom systems that require the development of innovative mechanisms with new models and control strategies. This workshop aims to answer the following questions: How can we develop systematic approaches to the design and modeling of complex robotic systems? How do we consider control as part of the robot design process? How can we propel unconventional designs from the lab to the real world? What role do specialized systems have in a future of increasingly standardized robots? We aim to bring together researchers and engineers across the disciplines of mechanism design, modeling and simulation, and control to share their experiences building and controlling unconventional robots.

Schedule

  8:50 -   9:00 Opening Remarks by Justin Yim

  9:00 -   9:30 Ryan St. Pierre
"Dual Spring Systems in Biological and Robotic Systems"

  9:30 - 10:00 Alexis E. Block
"The HuggieBot Chronicles: Lessons Learned from Designing a Hugging Robot"

10:00 - 10:10 Spotlight talks: Session 1

10:10 - 11:00 Coffee break and Poster Session

11:00 - 11:30 Gwang-Pil Jung
"Unconventional Motions in Milli-Scale Robotic Systems"

11:30 - 12:00 Mark Yim
"Smallest Walking Robot and Smallest Flying Robot"

12:00 - 12:30 Panel Discussion 1
Ryan St. Pierre, Alexis E. Block, Gwang-Pil Jung, and Mark Yim (Hosted by Zeynep Temel) 

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 - 14:00 Tasuku Makabe
"Transform Humanoid, Hardware Modules and Software & Developmental Systems"

14:00 - 14:30 Zac Manchester
"Engineering the World’s Smallest Spacecraft"

14:30 - 15:00 Hannah Stuart
"Designing Physically Robust Soft Grippers with Tactile Sensing"

15:00 - 15:10 Spotlight talks: Session 2

15:10 - 16:00 Coffee break and Poster Session

16:00 - 16:30 Margaret Coad
"Soft Everting Vine-Inspired Robots: Lessons from the Field and the Lab"

16:30 - 17:00 Panel Discussion 2
Tasuku Makabe, Zac Manchester, Hannah Stuart, and Margaret Coad (Hosted by Jeong Hun (JJ) Lee) 

17:00 - 17:15 Closing Remarks and Award Announcement by Aaron Johnson

Invited Speakers

Spotlight Talks

Morning Session

Sofia Di Toro Wyetzner, Wing-Sum Law, and Sean Follmer
“An Under-actuated Curved Surface Display”

Sukjun Kim, Gaoweiang Dong, Shengqiang Cai, and Tania K. Morimoto
“LASER: LCE Actuated Steerable Everting Robot”

Daniel Morton, Stanley Wang, Mark Cutkosky, and Marco Pavone
“Designing for Unconventional Mobility and Manipulation in Space Robotics”

Himani Sinhmar, Itay Griniasty, Qingkun Liu, Wei Wang, Itai Cohen, and Hadas Kress-Gazit
“Design and Control of Microscopic Robot Sheet”

Chen Liu and Ketao Zhang
“Wearable Robotic Orthosis for Finger Tremor Suppression Using PVC Gel Based Soft Actuators”

Mahdi Javadi, Shourie S. Grama, Daniel Pizzutilo, and Shivesh Kumar
“Minimalistic Bio-Inspired Brachiation Robots”

Hui Zhi, Bin Zhang, Chenguang Yang, and David Navarro-Alarcon
“Non-Prehensile Object Transport by Nonholonomic Robots Connected by Linear Deformable Elements”

Nina Hecht, Yanhao Yang, Farhan Rozaidi, and Ross L. Hatton
“Design of a Planar, Salp-Like Robot”

Jaeu Choe, Jeongseob Lee, Hyunsoo Yang, Hai-Nguyen Nguyen, and Dongjun Lee
“Preliminary Result of Sequential Trajectory Optimization for Externally-Actuated Modular Manipulators in 3D”

Ezra Ben Abu, Anna Zigelman, Sefi Givli, Evgueni Filipov, Hod Lipson, and Amir Gat
“Rewritable Multistable Non-Circular Frusta”

Afternoon Session

Justin Quan, Mingzhang Zhu, and Dennis Hong
“Re-examining Climbing Robots: A Novel, Lightweight, Low-Cost Robot with Highly Extendable Tape Spring Limb”

Kristan Hilby, Max Hughes, and Ian Hunter
“A Morphing Wing for a Stop-Rotor UAV: Design and Analysis”

Alexander Schperberg, Yusuke Tanaka, and Dennis Hong
“Planning, Control, and Estimation of a Complex and Underactuated Multi-Modal Robot”

Yusuke Tanaka, Alexander Schperberg, and Dennis Hong
“Exploring the Potentials of Multi-Modal Robotics with SCALER-B”

Xiaofeng Guo, Guanqi He, Junyi Geng, Sebastian Scherer, and Guanya Shi
“Flying Calligrapher: A System for Aerial Writing”

Shashwat Singh, Zeynep Temel, and Ryan St. Pierre
“Multi-modal jumping and crawling in an autonomous, springtail-inspired microrobot”

Pilwoo Lee, Sang-min Baek, and Kyu-jin Cho
“Centi-scale crawler with wheel-leg transformation for rugged terrain adaptation”

Luiza Labazanova, Liuming Qiu, Shokan Nakan, and David Navarro-Alarcon
“Deformable Mobile Robot for Adaptive Grasping and Manipulation”

Seunghyun An, Sang-Min Baek, Soo-Hwan Chae, Pilwoo Lee, Jongeun-Lee, Gwang-Pil Jung, and Kyu-Jin Cho
“Integrating Overcurrent and Direct Drive in a Jumping-Driving Robot for enhanced Mobility”

Sang-Ho Hyon, Ryo Ando
“Toward Modular Hydraulic Robots for Heavy Duty Application”

Andres Pulido, Tianjun Wang, Quang Pham, Antonio Luis Diaz, Peter Ifju, and Jane Shin
“Trajectory Tracking Control of a Drone-Boat Tethered System for Bathymetry Mapping”

Organizers

Sha Yi, Carnegie Mellon University

Jeong Hun (JJ) Lee, Carnegie Mellon University

Paul Nadan, Carnegie Mellon University

Justin Yim, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Zeynep Temel, Carnegie Mellon University

Aaron Johnson, Carnegie Mellon University

Kei Okada, The University of Tokyo

Laura Blumenschein, Purdue University

Technical Committee Support

We are grateful for the support of the IEEE-RAS Technical Committee on Mechanisms and Design.