Patents by Inventor Chad C. Kessens

Chad C. Kessens has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8977485
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods of autonomously self-righting a maneuverable robot. In one embodiment, an autonomous method for self-righting a maneuverable robot to affect recovery from an overturned state to its nominal upright configuration may include: defining a convex hull and center of mass of each link of the robot; determining the convex hull and overall robot center of mass for each joint configuration of the robot; analyzing each convex hull face to determine its stability or instability; grouping continuously stable orientations of the robot and joint configurations together defining nodes and transitions there between; assigning a cost to transitions between nodes; computing an overall cost for each potential set of transition costs resulting in achievement of the goal; and determining a sequence of one or more actions to self-right the robot such that the sequence of actions minimizes the overall cost of self-righting the robot.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
    Inventors: Chad C. Kessens, Daniel C. Smith