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Ravi Balasubramanian
Postdoctoral Fellow

No longer a member of RI.

For more information, see my personal homepage.

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Research interests

I am interested in the field of mobile manipulation, where mobile robotics and manipulation are wedded. In particular, I see robotic locomotion as the robot manipulating itself in the world or the robot manipulating the world to move around. My research work recently is focused on modeling unconventional locomotion strategies for robots to escape from stuck configurations.

For example, we have demonstrated a new locomotion strategy termed legless locomotion, where a round-bodied high-centered robot locomotes just by wiggling its legs, which don't touch the ground! The fundamental idea is to swing the legs back and forth and excite body oscillations. These motions when coupled with the changing body inertia and the contact constraints result in translation (see our ICRA 2004 paper for more details). The latest problem I am working on is how a car can utilize an active suspension to escape from a slippery ditch.

Previously, I designed, built, and maintained a team of robots for the challenging robotic soccer domain. It was exciting finding the best components, fitting them into tight space requirements, and be the fastest team in the field! I also designed some algorithms for smart interaction between the robots.

Research interest keywords

artificial intelligence, legged locomotion, manipulation, and mobile robots

Past Labs & Groups

Manipulation Lab - The Manipulation Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University investigates fundamental modes of manipulation under uncertainty.

Past Projects

Desktop Robotics - Is it possible to build robots which take the desktop as their task domain?

Legless Locomotion - A novel locomotion technique for legged robots when their legs don't touch the ground!

Publications

Note: This list may not be comprehensive. It contains only those publications in the RI publications database. Entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Legless Locomotion: A Novel Locomotion Technique for Legged Robots
  R. Balasubramanian, A. Rizzi, and M. Mason
  International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 27, No. 5, May, 2008, pp. 575 - 594. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [5367 KB] copyrighted

• Toward Legless Locomotion Control
  R. Balasubramanian, A. Rizzi, and M. Mason
  2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October, 2006, pp. 5594 - 5599. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [968 KB] copyrighted

• Modeling and Control Techniques for a Class of Mobile Robot Error Recovery Problems
  R. Balasubramanian
  doctoral dissertation, tech. report CMU-RI-TR-06-39, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, September, 2006. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [10971 KB] copyrighted

• Kinematic reduction and planning using symmetry for a variable inertia mechanical system
  R. Balasubramanian and A. Rizzi
  Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Vol. 4, October, 2004, pp. 3829 - 3834. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [337 KB] copyrighted

• Legless Locomotion: Models and Experimental Demonstration
  R. Balasubramanian, A. Rizzi, and M. Mason
  Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 2, April, 2004, pp. 1803 - 1808. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [653 KB] copyrighted

• Legless Locomotion for Legged Robots
  R. Balasubramanian, A. Rizzi, and M. Mason
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-04-05, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, January, 2004. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [973 KB] copyrighted

• Legless Locomotion for Legged Robots
  R. Balasubramanian, A. Rizzi, and M. Mason
  Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Vol. 1, October, 2003, pp. 880 - 885. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [473 KB] copyrighted

• Energy-Optimal Trajectories for Overactuated Robots
  R. Balasubramanian and T. Balch
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-02-17, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, July, 2002. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [129 KB], ps.gz [330 KB] copyrighted

• CMU Hammerheads 2001 Team Description
  S.B. Stancliff, R. Balasubramanian, T. Balch, R. Emery-Montemerlo, K. Sikorski, and A. Stroupe
  RoboCup 2001: Robot Soccer World, A. Birk, S. Coradeschi and S. Tadokoro, ed., Springer, New York, 2002, pp. 631-634. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [144 KB] copyrighted