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  • Robots Against Infectious Diseases : A Technologically Grounded, Human-Centered Exploration

    Creator:
    Kraft, Kory
    Abstract:
    Robots have the potential to protect health care workers, provide patient care, and ultimately save lives in infectious disease outbreaks. Nevertheless, infectious disease outbreak scenarios present unique technological and social challenges for robotics. This work explores what robots can and should do in the fight against infectious diseases. We present...
    Resource Type:
    Masters Thesis

  • Orb Web Vibrations: Modeling, Localization, and Measurement

    Creator:
    Otto, Andrew W.
    Abstract:
    The orb web is a multipurpose structure---serving as a home for its inhabitant spider, as a prey capture device, and as a physical extension of the spider’s sensing abilities. Biologists are particularly interested in the spider’s ability to locate prey trapped in its web by sensing the vibrations induced from...
    Resource Type:
    Dissertation
    Full Text:
    AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Andrew W. Otto for the

  • Making the Unconscious Unconscious : Reclaiming Microinteractions for People with Motor Disabilities

    Creator:
    Lazewatsky, Daniel A.
    Abstract:
    Numerous diseases and injuries can limit a person's ability to perform everyday tasks -- things like getting dressed, bathing, and eating. Anything that requires physical activity can be affected; even simple things like turning on the lights can become difficult or impossible. Until recently, the only way for a person...
    Resource Type:
    Dissertation

  • Recurrent Neural Networks for Robotic Control of a Human-Scale Bipedal Robot

    Creator:
    Siekmann, Jonah A.
    Abstract:
    Dynamic bipedal locomotion is among the most difficult and yet relevant problems in modern robotics. While a multitude of classical control methods for bipedal locomotion exist, they are often brittle or limited in capability. In recent years, work in applying reinforcement learning to robotics has lead to superior performance across...
    Resource Type:
    Honors College Thesis
    Full Text:
    Apgar, Patrick Clary, Kevin Green, Alan Fern, and Jonathan W. Hurst. Fast online trajectory optimization

  • Design and Development of a Salticid Inspired Jumping Robot

    Creator:
    Tachella, Ramsey
    Abstract:
    The ability to jump allows small robots to traverse rough terrain, clear large obstacles, and quickly reach elevated locations. These abilities have applications in a variety of areas such as, search and rescue, environmental monitoring, and urban warfare. The primary focus in current state-of-the-art jumping robots has been on jumping...
    Resource Type:
    Masters Thesis

  • Robust Reference-Free Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning for Bipedal Locomotion

    Creator:
    Siekmann, Jonah A.
    Abstract:
    In recent years, model-free Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) has become an increasingly popular alternative to more traditional model-based or optimization-based control methods in solving robotic legged locomotion. However, deploying RL in the real world can be a significant undertaking. Constructing reward functions which compel controllers to learn the desired behavior...
    Resource Type:
    Masters Thesis
    Full Text:
    -how. Thank you to my advisors Alan Fern and Jonathan Hurst for their mentorship and support during my

  • Practical Reinforcement Learning for Bipedal Locomotion

    Creator:
    Dao, Jeremy
    Abstract:
    Reinforcement learning has emerged as a popular tool for solving control tasks, with multiple works focusing on the complex and dynamic task of locomotion. However, the naive application of reinforcement learning to this problem often produces maladaptive policies that exploit the model or reward function. This results in behavior that...
    Resource Type:
    Capstone Project
    Full Text:
    , but not least, I would like to thank my advisors Dr. Alan Fern and Dr. Jonathan Hurst for their

  • Improving Soft Snake Robot Locomotion Through Targeted Environmental Interactions Using Artificial Snake Skin

    Creator:
    Branyan, Callie A.
    Abstract:
    This dissertation outlines the design and development of the first fully-soft, snake robot and its snake-inspired skin. Soft robotics takes advantage of soft materials to, among other things, improve robot interactions with complex, unstructured environments. Due to the interplay between the soft material and the environment, minor tweaks to the...
    Resource Type:
    Dissertation

  • Ballistic rebounds for wrapping a target with a casting manipulator

    Creator:
    Hill, Lucas P.
    Abstract:
    Casting manipulation in robotics is the act of launching a tethered projectile and using it to interact with the environment. One such interaction is wrapping a target. In this work, we identify throwing and tether control parameters for successfully wrapping a target with an end-weighted cable, evolving through a set...
    Resource Type:
    Masters Thesis
    Full Text:
    Dr. Jonathan Hurst. Members of the Laboratory for Robotics and Applied Mechanics, both past and

  • Fully Soft 3D Printed Electroactive Fluidic Valve in Soft Hydraulic Robots

    Creator:
    Zatopa, Alexander
    Abstract:
    Soft robots are designed to utilize their compliance and contortionistic abilities to both interact safely with their environment and move through it in ways a rigid robot cannot. To more completely achieve this, the robot should be made of as many soft components as possible. Here we present a completely...
    Resource Type:
    Masters Thesis
    Full Text:
    support during my study. Second, I would like to thank Dr. Jonathan Hurst, Dr. Cindy Grimm and Dr. Fuxin