papers

Publications (21)

cs.RO2025

Multi-CAP: A Multi-Robot Connectivity-Aware Hierarchical Coverage Path Planning Algorithm for Unknown Environments

Zongyuan Shen, Burhanuddin Shirose, Prasanna Sriganesh +3

Efficient coordination of multiple robots for coverage of large, unknown environments is a significant challenge that involves minimizing the total coverage path length while reduc…

cs.RO2025

Action-Informed Estimation and Planning: Clearing Clutter on Staircases via Quadrupedal Pedipulation

Prasanna Sriganesh, Barath Satheeshkumar, Anushree Sabnis +1

For robots to operate autonomously in densely cluttered environments, they must reason about and potentially physically interact with obstacles to clear a path. Safely clearing a p…

eess.SY2019

State Estimation for Legged Robots Using Contact-Centric Leg Odometry

Shuo Yang, Hans Kumar, Zhaoyuan Gu +3

Our goal is to send legged robots into challenging, unstructured terrains that wheeled systems cannot traverse. Moreover, precise estimation of the robot's position and orientation…

cs.RO2025

CAP: A Connectivity-Aware Hierarchical Coverage Path Planning Algorithm for Unknown Environments using Coverage Guidance Graph

Zongyuan Shen, Burhanuddin Shirose, Prasanna Sriganesh +1

Efficient coverage of unknown environments requires robots to adapt their paths in real time based on on-board sensor data. In this paper, we introduce CAP, a connectivity-aware hi…

eess.SY2019

Design and Implementation of a Three-Link Brachiation Robot with Optimal Control Based Trajectory Tracking Controller

Shuo Yang, Zhaoyuan Gu, Ruohai Ge +3

This paper reports the design and implementation of a three-link brachiation robot. The robot is able to travel along horizontal monkey bars using continuous arm swings. We build a…

cs.RO2023

Fast Staircase Detection and Estimation using 3D Point Clouds with Multi-detection Merging for Heterogeneous Robots

Prasanna Sriganesh, Namya Bagree, Bhaskar Vundurthy +1

Robotic systems need advanced mobility capabilities to operate in complex, three-dimensional environments designed for human use, e.g., multi-level buildings. Incorporating some le…

cs.RO2024

Longitudinal Control Volumes: A Novel Centralized Estimation and Control Framework for Distributed Multi-Agent Sorting Systems

James Maier, Prasanna Sriganesh, Matthew Travers

Centralized control of a multi-agent system improves upon distributed control especially when multiple agents share a common task e.g., sorting different materials in a recycling f…

cs.RO2021

Reconstruction of Backbone Curves for Snake Robots

Tianyu Wang, Bo Lin, Baxi Chong +5

Snake robots composed of alternating single-axis pitch and yaw joints have many internal degrees of freedom, which make them capable of versatile three-dimensional locomotion. In m…

cs.RO2021

The Geometric Structure of Externally Actuated Planar Locomoting Systems in Ambient Media

Blake Buchanan, Tony Dear, Scott Kelly +2

Robots often interact with the world via attached parts such as wheels, joints, or appendages. In many systems, these interactions, and the manner in which they lead to locomotion,…

nlin.CD2021

Stability and Control of Chaplygin Beanies Coupled to a Platform through Nonholonomic Constraints

Blake Buchanan, Matthew Travers, Howie Choset +1

Many multi-agent systems in nature are comprised of agents that interact with, and respond to, the dynamics of their environment. In this paper, we approach the study of such agent…

cs.RO2020

Directional Compliance in Obstacle-Aided Navigation for Snake Robots

Tianyu Wang, Julian Whitman, Matthew Travers +1

Snake robots have the potential to maneuver through tightly packed and complex environments. One challenge in enabling them to do so is the complexity in determining how to coordin…

cs.RO2023

Distributed Optimal Control Framework for High-Speed Convoys: Theory and Hardware Results

Namya Bagree, Charles Noren, Damanpreet Singh +2

Practical deployments of coordinated fleets of mobile robots in different environments have revealed the benefits of maintaining small distances between robots, especially as they…

physics.bio-ph2014

Sidewinding with minimal slip: Snake and robot ascent of sandy slopes

Hamidreza Marvi, Chaohui Gong, Nick Gravish +7

Limbless organisms such as snakes can navigate nearly all terrain. In particular, desert-dwelling sidewinder rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerastes) operate effectively on inclined granul…

eess.SY2018

Trajectory Generation for Millimeter Scale Ferromagnetic Swimmers: Theory and Experiments

Jaskaran Grover, Daniel Vedova, Nalini Jain +3

Microrobots have the potential to impact many areas such as microsurgery, micromanipulation and minimally invasive sensing. Due to their small size, microrobots swim in a regime th…

cs.RO2024

Modular, Resilient, and Scalable System Design Approaches -- Lessons learned in the years after DARPA Subterranean Challenge

Prasanna Sriganesh, James Maier, Adam Johnson +7

Field robotics applications, such as search and rescue, involve robots operating in large, unknown areas. These environments present unique challenges that compound the difficultie…

cs.CV2022

RGB-X Classification for Electronics Sorting

FNU Abhimanyu, Tejas Zodage, Umesh Thillaivasan +8

Effectively disassembling and recovering materials from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is a critical step in moving global supply chains from carbon-intensive, mi…

cs.RO2025

A Bayesian Modeling Framework for Estimation and Ground Segmentation of Cluttered Staircases

Prasanna Sriganesh, Burhanuddin Shirose, Matthew Travers

Autonomous robot navigation in complex environments requires robust perception as well as high-level scene understanding due to perceptual challenges, such as occlusions, and uncer…

cs.LG2021

Predicting Nanorobot Shapes via Generative Models

Emma Benjaminson, Rebecca E. Taylor, Matthew Travers

The field of DNA nanotechnology has made it possible to assemble, with high yields, different structures that have actionable properties. For example, researchers have created comp…

cs.RO2021

Optimal Control for Structurally Sparse Systems using Graphical Inference

Roshan Pradhan, Shuo Yang, Frank Dellaert +2

Dynamical systems with a distributed yet interconnected structure, like multi-rigid-body robots or large-scale multi-agent systems, introduce valuable sparsity into the system dyna…

cs.RO2021

Learning Modular Robot Control Policies

Julian Whitman, Matthew Travers, Howie Choset

Modular robots can be rearranged into a new design, perhaps each day, to handle a wide variety of tasks by forming a customized robot for each new task. However, reconfiguring just…

cs.RO2018

Learning to Sequence Robot Behaviors for Visual Navigation

Hadi Salman, Puneet Singhal, Tanmay Shankar +6

Recent literature in the robotics community has focused on learning robot behaviors that abstract out lower-level details of robot control. To fully leverage the efficacy of such b…