{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109428"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/109428","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Designing boundary interactions for simple mobile robots","abstract":"\"Mobile robots are becoming increasingly common for applications such as logistics and delivery. While most research for mobile robots focuses on generating collision-free paths, however, an environment may be so crowded with obstacles that allowing contact with environment boundaries makes our robot more efficient or our plans more robust. The robot may be so small or in a remote environment such that traditional sensing and communication is impossible, and contact with boundaries can help reduce uncertainty in the robot's state while navigating. These novel scenarios call for novel system designs and novel system design tools. To address this gap, this thesis presents a general approach to modeling and planning over interactions between a robot and boundaries of its environment, and presents prototypes or simulations of such systems for solving high-level tasks such as object manipulation. One major contribution of this thesis is the derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions of stable, periodic trajectories for \"\"bouncing robots,\"\" a particular model of point robots that move in straight lines between boundary interactions. Another major contribution is the description and implementation of an exact geometric planner for bouncing robots. We demonstrate the planner on traditional trajectory generation from start to goal states, as well as how to specify and generate stable periodic trajectories. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of the planner for environment geometry analysis, with respect to the role of environment geometry and system design constraints on the reachability and stability of bouncing robot trajectories. We propose a general approach for the design of bouncing robot systems, as well as more general classes of wild robots. We start by identifying useful, robust open-loop motion strategies, then integrate sensors and information space reasoning to determine conditions for switching between these open-loop behaviors. This approach is demonstrated on the task of \"\"cart-on-track\"\" object manipulation, motivated by design constraints for robots at the micrometer length scale. We identify the parts of this approach most amenable to automation, and provide a collection of supporting software tools. The final contribution of the thesis is a chapter including qualitative design principles for automated robot design systems, as well as an example of a live-coding interface for the design of mobile robot motion patterns demonstrating some of these principles. We conclude with an outline of our vision for this area of research in the future.\"","abstract_html":""Mobile robots are becoming increasingly common for applications such as logistics and delivery. While most research for mobile robots focuses on generating collision-free paths, however, an environment may be so crowded with obstacles that allowing contact with environment boundaries makes our robot more efficient or our plans more robust. The robot may be so small or in a remote environment such that traditional sensing and communication is impossible, and contact with boundaries can help reduce uncertainty in the robot's state while navigating. These novel scenarios call for novel system designs and novel system design tools. To address this gap, this thesis presents a general approach to modeling and planning over interactions between a robot and boundaries of its environment, and presents prototypes or simulations of such systems for solving high-level tasks such as object manipulation. One major contribution of this thesis is the derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions of stable, periodic trajectories for ""bouncing robots,"" a particular model of point robots that move in straight lines between boundary interactions. Another major contribution is the description and implementation of an exact geometric planner for bouncing robots. We demonstrate the planner on traditional trajectory generation from start to goal states, as well as how to specify and generate stable periodic trajectories. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of the planner for environment geometry analysis, with respect to the role of environment geometry and system design constraints on the reachability and stability of bouncing robot trajectories. We propose a general approach for the design of bouncing robot systems, as well as more general classes of wild robots. We start by identifying useful, robust open-loop motion strategies, then integrate sensors and information space reasoning to determine conditions for switching between these open-loop behaviors. This approach is demonstrated on the task of ""cart-on-track"" object manipulation, motivated by design constraints for robots at the micrometer length scale. We identify the parts of this approach most amenable to automation, and provide a collection of supporting software tools. The final contribution of the thesis is a chapter including qualitative design principles for automated robot design systems, as well as an example of a live-coding interface for the design of mobile robot motion patterns demonstrating some of these principles. We conclude with an outline of our vision for this area of research in the future."","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Nilles, Alexandra Q"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["LaValle, Steven M","Amato, Nancy M","Mitra, Sayan","Murphey, Todd D"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021-03-05T21:38:19Z","date_published":"2021-03-05T21:38:19Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:50Z","subjects":["robotics","minimalism","billiards","mobile robotics","boundary interactions","robophysics","live-coding","design","CAD","motion planning","underactuated robots"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2020 Alexandra Nilles"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109428","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["LaValle, Steven M","Amato, Nancy M","Mitra, Sayan","Murphey, Todd D"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Nilles, Alexandra Q"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2021-03-05T21:38:19Z","2020-12-02","2020-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["robotics","minimalism","billiards","mobile robotics","boundary interactions","robophysics","live-coding","design","CAD","motion planning","underactuated robots"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2020 Alexandra Nilles"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109428"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["\"Mobile robots are becoming increasingly common for applications such as logistics and delivery. While most research for mobile robots focuses on generating collision-free paths, however, an environment may be so crowded with obstacles that allowing contact with environment boundaries makes our robot more efficient or our plans more robust. The robot may be so small or in a remote environment such that traditional sensing and communication is impossible, and contact with boundaries can help reduce uncertainty in the robot's state while navigating. These novel scenarios call for novel system designs and novel system design tools. To address this gap, this thesis presents a general approach to modeling and planning over interactions between a robot and boundaries of its environment, and presents prototypes or simulations of such systems for solving high-level tasks such as object manipulation. One major contribution of this thesis is the derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions of stable, periodic trajectories for \"\"bouncing robots,\"\" a particular model of point robots that move in straight lines between boundary interactions. Another major contribution is the description and implementation of an exact geometric planner for bouncing robots. We demonstrate the planner on traditional trajectory generation from start to goal states, as well as how to specify and generate stable periodic trajectories. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of the planner for environment geometry analysis, with respect to the role of environment geometry and system design constraints on the reachability and stability of bouncing robot trajectories. We propose a general approach for the design of bouncing robot systems, as well as more general classes of wild robots. We start by identifying useful, robust open-loop motion strategies, then integrate sensors and information space reasoning to determine conditions for switching between these open-loop behaviors. This approach is demonstrated on the task of \"\"cart-on-track\"\" object manipulation, motivated by design constraints for robots at the micrometer length scale. We identify the parts of this approach most amenable to automation, and provide a collection of supporting software tools. The final contribution of the thesis is a chapter including qualitative design principles for automated robot design systems, as well as an example of a live-coding interface for the design of mobile robot motion patterns demonstrating some of these principles. We conclude with an outline of our vision for this area of research in the future.\"","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. 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While most research for mobile robots focuses on generating collision-free paths, however, an environment may be so crowded with obstacles that allowing contact with environment boundaries makes our robot more efficient or our plans more robust. The robot may be so small or in a remote environment such that traditional sensing and communication is impossible, and contact with boundaries can help reduce uncertainty in the robot's state while navigating. These novel scenarios call for novel system designs and novel system design tools. To address this gap, this thesis presents a general approach to modeling and planning over interactions between a robot and boundaries of its environment, and presents prototypes or simulations of such systems for solving high-level tasks such as object manipulation. One major contribution of this thesis is the derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions of stable, periodic trajectories for \"\"bouncing robots,\"\" a particular model of point robots that move in straight lines between boundary interactions. Another major contribution is the description and implementation of an exact geometric planner for bouncing robots. We demonstrate the planner on traditional trajectory generation from start to goal states, as well as how to specify and generate stable periodic trajectories. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of the planner for environment geometry analysis, with respect to the role of environment geometry and system design constraints on the reachability and stability of bouncing robot trajectories. We propose a general approach for the design of bouncing robot systems, as well as more general classes of wild robots. We start by identifying useful, robust open-loop motion strategies, then integrate sensors and information space reasoning to determine conditions for switching between these open-loop behaviors. This approach is demonstrated on the task of \"\"cart-on-track\"\" object manipulation, motivated by design constraints for robots at the micrometer length scale. We identify the parts of this approach most amenable to automation, and provide a collection of supporting software tools. The final contribution of the thesis is a chapter including qualitative design principles for automated robot design systems, as well as an example of a live-coding interface for the design of mobile robot motion patterns demonstrating some of these principles. We conclude with an outline of our vision for this area of research in the future.\"","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2021-03-04 without embargo terms","The student, Alexandra Nilles, accepted the attached license on 2020-12-02 at 14:01.","The student, Alexandra Nilles, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2020-12-02 at 14:14.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2020-12-02 at 14:46.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16038 on 2021-03-04 at 15:35:59","Made available in DSpace on 2021-03-05T21:38:19Z (GMT). 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