55 citations · 118 across the 23 of their papers we have counts for
27 papers
A Conveyor Belt Mechanism for Repositionable Magnetic Coupling Between Continuum Robots
Ella Walsh, Eric Diller, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
This work proposes a novel conveyor belt mechanism enabling continuous, active repositioning of functional elements along the body of a tendon-driven continuum robot. Up to three c…
Sliding Sensors: Configurable Confidence in State Estimation for Continuum Robots
Ella Walsh, Spencer Teetaert, Eric Diller +2
Continuum robots often operate in uncertain environments, where accurate state estimation is essential for safe interactions. Estimate uncertainty is inherently spatially non-unifo…
Do Rigid-Body Simulators Dream of Soft Robots? Learning Contact-Rich Manipulation for Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots
Chengnan Shentu, Nicholas Baldassini, Tongjia Zheng +2
Learning contact-rich, whole-body manipulation for soft continuum robots is held back by the lack of simulation infrastructure that has accelerated rigid-robot manipulation. Existi…
Sampling-Based Follow-the-Leader Motion Planning for Manipulator-Mounted Continuum Robots
Chengnan Shentu, Nicholas Baldassini, Oluwagbotemi D. Iseoluwa +2
Follow-the-leader (FTL) motion exploits the unique morphology of continuum robots (CRs) to navigate confined spaces by having the body retrace the path of the tip. While extensivel…
Continuum Robot Localization using Distributed Time-of-Flight Sensors
Spencer Teetaert, Giammarco Caroleo, Marco Pontin +4
Localization and mapping of an environment are crucial tasks for any robot operating in unstructured environments. Time-of-flight (ToF) sensors (e.g.,~lidar) have proven useful in…
Collaborative Continuum Robots: A Survey from an Automation-System Perspective
Xinyu Li, Qian Tang, Guoxin Yin +4
Continuum robots (CRs), owing to their compact structure, inherent compliance, and flexible deformation, have been widely applied in various fields. By coordinating multiple CRs to…
A Sliding-Window Filter for Online Continuous-Time Continuum Robot State Estimation
Spencer Teetaert, Sven Lilge, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs +1
Stochastic state estimation methods for continuum robots (CRs) often struggle to balance accuracy and computational efficiency. While several recent works have explored sliding-win…
A Stochastic Framework for Continuous-Time State Estimation of Continuum Robots
Spencer Teetaert, Sven Lilge, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs +1
State estimation techniques for continuum robots (CRs) typically involve using computationally complex dynamic models, simplistic shape approximations, or are limited to quasi-stat…
Estimating Dynamic Soft Continuum Robot States From Boundaries
Tongjia Zheng, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
State estimation is one of the fundamental problems in robotics. For soft continuum robots, this task is particularly challenging because their states (poses, strains, internal wre…
Displacement-Actuated Continuum Robots: A Joint Space Abstraction
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
The displacement-actuated continuum robot as an abstraction has been shown as a key abstraction to significantly simplify and improve approaches due to its relation to the Clarke t…
Clarke Coordinates Are Generalized Improved State Parametrization for Continuum Robots
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
In this letter, we demonstrate that previously proposed improved state parameterizations for soft and continuum robots are specific cases of Clarke coordinates. By explicitly deriv…
Toward Dynamic Control of Tendon-driven Continuum Robots using Clarke Transform
Christian Muhmann, Reinhard M. Grassmann, Max Bartholdt +1
In this paper, we propose a dynamic model and control framework for tendon-driven continuum robots (TDCRs) with multiple segments and an arbitrary number of tendons per segment. Ou…
Clarke Transform and Encoder-Decoder Architecture for Arbitrary Joints Locations in Displacement-Actuated Continuum Robots
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
In this paper, we consider an arbitrary number of joints and their arbitrary joint locations along the center line of a displacement-actuated continuum robot. To achieve this, we r…
Using Clarke Transform to Create a Framework on the Manifold: From Sampling via Trajectory Generation to Control
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
We present a framework based on Clarke coordinates for spatial displacement-actuated continuum robots with an arbitrary number of joints. This framework consists of three modular c…
Clarke Transform -- A Fundamental Tool for Continuum Robotics
Reinhard Grassmann, Anastasiia Senyk, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
This article introduces the Clarke transform and Clarke coordinates, which present a solution to the disengagement of an arbitrary number of coupled displacement actuation of conti…
Clarke Transform and Clarke Coordinates -- A New Kid on the Block for State Representation of Continuum Robots
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
For almost all tendon-driven continuum robots, a segment is actuated by three or four tendons constrained by its mechanical design. For both cases, methods to account for the const…
Universal-jointed Tendon-driven Continuum Robot: Design, Kinematic Modeling, and Locomotion in Narrow Tubes
Chengnan Shentu, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
Tendon-driven Continuum Robots (TDCRs) are promising candidates for applications in confined spaces due to their unique shape, compliance, and miniaturization capability. Non-paral…
Space-Time Continuum: Continuous Shape and Time State Estimation for Flexible Robots
Spencer Teetaert, Sven Lilge, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs +1
This extended abstract introduces a novel method for continuous state estimation of continuum robots. We formulate the estimation problem as a factor-graph optimization problem usi…
A Non-Linear Model Predictive Task-Space Controller Satisfying Shape Constraints for Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots
Maximillian Hachen, Chengnan Shentu, Sven Lilge +1
Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots (TDCRs) have the potential to be used in minimally invasive surgery and industrial inspection, where the robot must enter narrow and confined spaces.…
Towards Contact-Aided Motion Planning for Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots
Priyanka Rao, Oren Salzman, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
Tendon-driven continuum robots (TDCRs), with their flexible backbones, offer the advantage of being used for navigating complex, cluttered environments. However, to do so, they typ…
On the Disentanglement of Tube Inequalities in Concentric Tube Continuum Robots
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Anastasiia Senyk, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
Concentric tube continuum robots utilize nested tubes, which are subject to a set of inequalities. Current approaches to account for inequalities rely on branching methods such as…
State Estimation for Continuum Multi-Robot Systems on SE(3)
Sven Lilge, Timothy D. Barfoot, Jessica Burgner-Kahrs
In contrast to conventional robots, accurately modeling the kinematics and statics of continuum robots is challenging due to partially unknown material properties, parasitic effect…
CIDGIKc: Distance-Geometric Inverse Kinematics for Continuum Robots
Hanna Jiamei Zhang, Matthew Giamou, Filip Marić +2
The small size, high dexterity, and intrinsic compliance of continuum robots (CRs) make them well suited for constrained environments. Solving the inverse kinematics (IK), that is…
Open Continuum Robotics -- One Actuation Module to Create them All
Reinhard M. Grassmann, Chengnan Shentu, Taqi Hamoda +2
Experiments on physical continuum robot are the gold standard for evaluations. Currently, as no commercial continuum robot platform is available, a large variety of early-stage pro…