Autonomous robotic exploration of unknown soft objects

Junlei Hu, Dominic Jones, Gerardo Loza Galindo, Shoudong Huang, Pietro Valdastri, STORM Lab, Institute of Autonomous Systems and Sensing , School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, School of Computer Science, University of Leeds, Robotics Institute, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney

The International Journal of Robotics Research

Published online on February 17, 2026

Abstract

The International Journal of Robotics Research, Ahead of Print.
Robotic exploration of unknown soft objects presents significant challenges for autonomous systems due to unpredictable deformations and shape changes during manipulation. To address this, we propose a framework that integrates topology-aware 3D ...