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We present a control framework that enables humanoid robots to perform collaborative transportation tasks with a human partner. The framework supports both translational and rotational motions, which are fundamental to co-transport…

Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…

Dynamical systems (DSs) provide a framework for high flexibility, robustness, and control reliability and are widely used in motion planning and physical human-robot interaction. The properties of the DS directly determine the robot's…

Learning has propelled the cutting edge of performance in robotic control to new heights, allowing robots to operate with high performance in conditions that were previously unimaginable. The majority of the work, however, assumes that the…

Although recent years have seen significant progress of humanoid robots in walking and running, the frequent foot strikes with ground during these locomotion gaits inevitably generate high instantaneous impact forces, which leads to…

Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…

Legged locomotion is commonly studied and expressed as a discrete set of gait patterns, like walk, trot, gallop, which are usually treated as given and pre-programmed in legged robots for efficient locomotion at different speeds. However,…

Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…

We study the dynamics of the structure of a formal neural network wherein the strengths of the synapses are governed by spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). For properly chosen input signals, there exists a steady state with a residual…

We explore the locomotion of soft robots in granular medium (GM) resulting from the elastic deformation of slender rods. A low-cost, rapidly fabricable robot inspired by the physiological structure of bacteria is presented. It consists of a…

Passive deformation due to compliance is a commonly used benefit of soft robots, providing opportunities to achieve robust actuation with few active degrees of freedom. Soft growing robots in particular have shown promise in navigation of…

Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) is believed to play an important role in learning and the formation of computational function in the brain. The classical model of STDP which considers the timing between pairs of pre-synaptic and…

In this paper, we propose an intermittent communication framework for mobile robot networks. Specifically, we consider robots that move along the edges of a connected mobility graph and communicate only when they meet at the nodes of that…

The dynamical properties of tensegrity robots give them appealing ruggedness and adaptability, but present major challenges with respect to locomotion control. Due to high-dimensionality and complex contact responses, data-driven approaches…

The rotor-router model, also called the Propp machine, was introduced as a deterministic alternative to the random walk. In this model, a group of identical tokens are initially placed at nodes of the graph. Each node maintains a cyclic…

Gaits engineered for snake-like robots to rotate in-place instrumentally fill a gap in the set of locomotive gaits that have traditionally prioritized translation. This paper designs a Turn-in-Place gait and demonstrates the ability of a…

Flapping-wing robots offer significant versatility; however, achieving efficient multi-modal locomotion remains challenging. This paper presents the design, modeling, and experimentation of a novel tailless flapping-wing robot with three…

This paper introduces a new wheel-legged robot and develops motion controllers based on central pattern generators (CPGs) for the robot to navigate over a range of terrains. A transformable leg-wheel design is considered and characterized…

Nowadays, mobile robots are deployed in many indoor environments, such as offices or hospitals. These environments are subject to changes in the traversability that often happen by following repeating patterns. In this paper, we investigate…

This paper introduces a new type of soft continuum robot, called SCoReS, which is capable of self-controlling continuously its curvature at the segment level; in contrast to previous designs which either require external forces or machine…