Summary
Dr Nicolas Rojas is the Director of the Robotic manipulation: Engineering, Design, and Science Laboratory (REDS Lab) and a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. His research focuses on the analysis, design, control, and implementation of robotic systems for manipulation and grasping under diversity and uncertainty; with special interest and experience in methods to leverage robot design and hardware for simplifying control complexity, and in methods to reduce data needs and manual labelling in machine learning for robot control. Videos of his research can be found here.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Chappell D, Bello F, Kormushev P, et al., The Hydra Hand: A Mode-Switching Underactuated Gripper with Precision and Power Grasping Modes, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, ISSN:2377-3766
Clark A, Rojas N, 2022, Malleable robots: reconfigurable robotic arms with continuum links of variable stiffness, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol:38, ISSN:1552-3098, Pages:3832-3849
Li K, Baron N, Zhang X, et al., 2022, EfficientGrasp: a unified data-efficient learning to grasp method for multi-fingered robot hands, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:1-8
Chappell D, Son HW, Clark AB, et al., 2022, Virtual reality pre-prosthetic hand training with physics simulation and robotic force interaction, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:7, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:1-1
Ranne A, Clark AB, Rojas N, 2022, Augmented reality-assisted reconfiguration and workspace visualization of malleable robots: workspace modification through holographic guidance, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, Vol:29, ISSN:1070-9932, Pages:2-13
Lu Q, Baron N, Clark AB, et al., 2021, Systematic object-invariant in-hand manipulation via reconfigurable underactuatuation: introducing the RUTH gripper, International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol:40, ISSN:0278-3649, Pages:1402-1418
He L, Lu Q, Abad S-A, et al., 2020, Soft fingertips with tactile sensing and active deformation for robust grasping of delicate objects, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:5, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:2714-2721
Lu Q, Clark A, Shen M, et al., 2020, An origami-inspired variable friction surface for increasing the dexterity of robotic grippers, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:5, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:2538-2545
Liow L, Clark A, Rojas N, 2020, OLYMPIC: a modular, tendon-driven prosthetic hand with novel finger and wrist coupling mechanisms, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:5, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:299-306
Clark A, Rojas N, 2019, Assessing the performance of variable stiffness continuum structures of large diameter, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:4, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:2455-2462
Lu Q, Rojas N, 2019, On soft fingertips for in-hand manipulation: modelling and implications for robot hand design, Ieee Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol:4, ISSN:2377-3766, Pages:2471-2478
Rojas N, Ma RR, Dollar AM, 2016, The GR2 gripper: an underactuated hand for open-loop in-hand planar manipulation, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Vol:32, ISSN:1552-3098, Pages:763-770
Conference
Lu Q, Gan Z, Wang X, et al., 2023, Mechanical intelligence for prehensile in-hand manipulation of spatial trajectories, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Pages:1-7, ISSN:1050-4729
Li K, Chappell D, Rojas N, Immersive Demonstrations are the Key to Imitation Learning, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Wang X, Rojas N, 2022, A data-efficient model-based learning framework for the closed-loop control of continuum robots, IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, IEEE
Yang Z, Clark A, Chappell D, et al., Instinctive real-time sEMG-based control of prosthetic hand with reduced data acquisition and embedded deep learning training, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Lu Q, Baron N, Bai G, et al., 2021, Mechanical intelligence for adaptive precision grasp, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2021, IEEE, Pages:4530-4536
Lu Q, Wang J, Zhang Z, et al., 2021, An underactuated gripper based on car differentials for self-adaptive grasping with passive disturbance rejection, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2021, IEEE, Pages:2605-2611
Clark A, Rojas N, 2020, Design and workspace characterisation of malleable robots, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Pages:9021-9027
Lu Q, Baron N, Clark A, et al., 2020, The RUTH Gripper: systematic object-invariant prehensile in-hand manipulation via reconfigurable underactuation, Robotics: Science and Systems, RSS
Lu Q, Liang H, Nanayakkara DPT, et al., 2020, Precise in-hand manipulation of soft objects using soft fingertips with tactile sensing and active deformation, IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, IEEE, Pages:52-57
Clark AB, Rojas N, 2019, Stiffness-tuneable limb segment with flexible spine for malleable robots, 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Pages:3969-3975, ISSN:2577-087X
Bai G, Rojas N, 2019, Self-adaptive monolithic anthropomorphic finger with teeth-guided compliant cross-four-bar joints for underactuated hands, 2018 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), IEEE
Bircher WG, Dollar AM, Rojas N, 2017, A two-fingered robot gripper with large object reorientation range, 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE