Related papers: Projection based whole body motion planning for le…
This paper focuses on robustness to disturbance forces and uncertain payloads. We present a novel formulation to optimize the robustness of dynamic trajectories. A straightforward transcription of this formulation into a nonlinear…
Generation of robust trajectories for legged robots remains a challenging task due to the underlying nonlinear, hybrid and intrinsically unstable dynamics which needs to be stabilized through limited contact forces. Furthermore,…
A cable-driven soft-bodied robot with redundancy can conduct the trajectory tracking task and in the meanwhile fulfill some extra constraints, such as tracking through an end-effector in designated orientation, or get rid of the evitable…
Locomotion planning for legged systems requires reasoning about suitable contact schedules. The contact sequence and timings constitute a hybrid dynamical system and prescribe a subset of achievable motions. State-of-the-art approaches cast…
Autonomous terrain traversal of articulated tracked robots can reduce operator cognitive load to enhance task efficiency and facilitate extensive deployment. We present a novel hybrid trajectory optimization method aimed at generating…
Hybrid locomotion, which combines multiple modalities of locomotion within a single robot, enables robots to carry out complex tasks in diverse environments. This paper presents a novel method for planning multi-modal locomotion…
Robots must make and break contact with the environment to perform useful tasks, but planning and control through contact remains a formidable challenge. In this work, we achieve real-time contact-implicit model predictive control with a…
We present an efficient spacetime optimization method to automatically generate animations for a general volumetric, elastically deformable body. Our approach can model the interactions between the body and the environment and automatically…
We propose a novel and efficient lifting approach for the optimal control of rigid-body systems with contacts to improve the convergence properties of Newton-type methods. To relax the high nonlinearity, we consider the state, acceleration,…
Consider the problem of planning collision-free motion of $n$ objects in the plane movable through contact with a robot that can autonomously translate in the plane and that can move a maximum of $m \leq n$ objects simultaneously. This…
Long-term non-prehensile planar manipulation is a challenging task for planning and control, requiring determination of both continuous and discrete contact configurations, such as contact points and modes. This leads to the non-convexity…
Complex multibody legged robots can have complex rotational control challenges. In this paper, we propose a concise way to understand and formulate a \emph{whole-body orientation} that (i) depends on system configuration only and not a…
The hybrid zero dynamics (HZD) approach has become a powerful tool for the gait planning and control of bipedal robots. This paper aims to extend the HZD methods to address walking, ambling and trotting behaviors on a quadrupedal robot. We…
This paper presents a multi-contact motion adaptation framework that enables teleoperation of high degree-of-freedom (DoF) robots, such as quadrupeds and humanoids, for loco-manipulation tasks in multi-contact settings. Our proposed…
To be feasible for computationally intensive applications such as parametric studies, optimization and control design, large-scale finite element analysis requires model order reduction. This is particularly true in nonlinear settings that…
The paper focuses on collision-inclusive motion planning for impact-resilient mobile robots. We propose a new deformation recovery and replanning strategy to handle collisions that may occur at run-time. Contrary to collision avoidance…
This paper proposes an integrated approach for the safe and efficient control of mobile robots in dynamic and uncertain environments. The approach consists of two key steps: one-shot multimodal motion prediction to anticipate motions of…
Dynamic jumping with legged robots poses a challenging problem in planning and control. Formulating the jump optimization to allow fast online execution is difficult; efficiently using this capability to generate long-horizon motion plans…
Designing robot morphologies and kinematics has traditionally relied on human intuition, with little systematic foundation. Motion-design co-optimization offers a promising path toward automation, but two major challenges remain: (i) the…
Motion planning trajectories for a multi-limbed robot to climb up walls requires a unique combination of constraints on torque, contact force, and posture. This paper focuses on motion planning for one particular setup wherein a six-legged…