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Model-free reinforcement learning algorithms have exhibited great potential in solving single-task sequential decision-making problems with high-dimensional observations and long horizons, but are known to be hard to generalize across…

Humans can leverage physical interaction to teach robot arms. As the human kinesthetically guides the robot through demonstrations, the robot learns the desired task. While prior works focus on how the robot learns, it is equally important…

Teaching Robotics is about empowering students to create and configure robotics devices and program computers to nurture in students the skill sets necessary to play an active role in society. The robot in Figure 1 focuses on the design of…

Reinforcement learning is a promising approach to developing hard-to-engineer adaptive solutions for complex and diverse robotic tasks. However, learning with real-world robots is often unreliable and difficult, which resulted in their low…

We develop a hybrid control approach for robot learning based on combining learned predictive models with experience-based state-action policy mappings to improve the learning capabilities of robotic systems. Predictive models provide an…

For the task with complicated manipulation in unstructured environments, traditional hand-coded methods are ineffective, while reinforcement learning can provide more general and useful policy. Although the reinforcement learning is able to…

Precise trajectory tracking for legged robots can be challenging due to their high degrees of freedom, unmodeled nonlinear dynamics, or random disturbances from the environment. A commonly adopted solution to overcome these challenges is to…

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has been applied successfully to many robotic applications. However, the large number of trials needed for training is a key issue. Most of existing techniques developed to improve training efficiency (e.g.…

Reinforcement learning (RL) has shown to be a valuable tool in training neural networks for autonomous motion planning. The application of RL to a specific problem is dependent on a reward signal to quantify how good or bad a certain action…

This paper proposes a novel learning-based framework for autonomous driving based on the concept of maximal safety probability. Efficient learning requires rewards that are informative of desirable/undesirable states, but such rewards are…

Object handover is a basic, but essential capability for robots interacting with humans in many applications, e.g., caring for the elderly and assisting workers in manufacturing workshops. It appears deceptively simple, as humans perform…

This paper presents a novel method for learning reward functions for robotic motions by harnessing the power of a CLIP-based model. Traditional reward function design often hinges on manual feature engineering, which can struggle to…

In this paper we introduce a novel framework for expressing and learning force-sensitive robot manipulation skills. It is based on a formalism that extends our previous work on adaptive impedance control with meta parameter learning and…

Real-world robotic tasks require complex reward functions. When we define the problem the robot needs to solve, we pretend that a designer specifies this complex reward exactly, and it is set in stone from then on. In practice, however,…

We argue that hardware modularity plays a key role in the convergence of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We introduce a new approach for building robots that leads to more adaptable and capable machines. We present the concept of…

The drive for efficiency and safety in construction has boosted the role of robotics and automation. However, complex tasks like welding and pipe insertion pose challenges due to their need for precise adaptive force control, which…

Model-based approaches for planning and control for bipedal locomotion have a long history of success. It can provide stability and safety guarantees while being effective in accomplishing many locomotion tasks. Model-free reinforcement…

Deep reinforcement learning enables algorithms to learn complex behavior, deal with continuous action spaces and find good strategies in environments with high dimensional state spaces. With deep reinforcement learning being an active area…

We investigate what specific design choices enable successful online reinforcement learning (RL) on physical robots. Across 100 real-world training runs on three distinct robotic platforms, we systematically ablate algorithmic, systems, and…

Robotic surface-interaction tasks, such as spray painting or welding, require both accurate geometric planning and precise motion execution. While modern motion planners generate valid geometric paths, they often lack the expert motor…