From the Netherlands to Italy to advance robotic manipulation

From September to October 2025, Yaolei Shen, researcher at the University of Twente, completed his secondment at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, collaborating with the Centro di Ricerca “E. Piaggio”.

His work focused on motion planning for deformable linear objects manipulated by multi-robot systems in environments with obstacles, aiming to develop dynamic, collision-free trajectory generation algorithms for such robotic systems.

During his stay, Yaolei developed and tested a graphs-of-convex-sets-based motion planning method, addressing challenges such as non-convex task spaces, the high dimensionality of deformable objects, and the need for dynamically feasible trajectories. Experiments using robotic arms validated the approach, demonstrating reliable, real-time manipulation of deformable objects.

The secondment produced valuable datasets, algorithm codes, experimental data, and videos, which will be shared once appropriate. This work strengthened international collaboration and advanced innovative methods for robotic manipulation of continuous deformable objects.

Stay tuned for upcoming results and publications!