Related papers: Toward Efficient and Robust Biped Walking Optimiza…
Parallel-elastic joints can improve the efficiency and strength of robots by assisting the actuators with additional torques. For these benefits to be realized, a spring needs to be carefully designed. However, designing robots is an…
The remarkable athletic intelligence displayed by humans in complex dynamic movements such as dancing and gymnastics suggests that the balance mechanism in biological beings is decoupled from specific movement patterns. This decoupling…
We present a footstep planning policy for quadrupedal locomotion that is able to directly take into consideration a-priori safety information in its decisions. At its core, a learning process analyzes terrain patches, classifying each…
The ability to track a general walking path with specific timing is crucial to the operational safety and reliability of bipedal robots for avoiding dynamic obstacles, such as pedestrians, in complex environments. This paper introduces an…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…
This paper considers the problem of optimally balancing motion energy and communication transmission energy of a mobile robot tasked with transmitting a given number of data bits to a remote station, while navigating to a prespecified…
Previous studies have successfully demonstrated agile and robust locomotion in challenging terrains for quadrupedal robots. However, the bipedal locomotion mode for quadruped robots remains unverified. This paper explores the adaptation of…
Generating robust locomotion for a humanoid robot in the presence of disturbances is difficult because of its high number of degrees of freedom and its unstable nature. In this paper, we used the concept of Divergent Component of…
Hybrid locomotion of wheeled-legged robots has recently attracted increasing attention due to their advantages of combining the agility of legged locomotion and the efficiency of wheeled motion. But along with expanded performance, the…
We present a sampling-based kinodynamic planning framework for a bipedal robot in complex environments. Unlike other footstep planner which typically plan footstep locations and the biped dynamics in separate steps, we handle both…
Nature suggests that exploiting the elasticities and natural dynamics of robotic systems could increase their locomotion efficiency. Prior work on elastic snake robots supports this hypothesis, but has not fully exploited the nonlinear…
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…
A robot guide dog has compelling advantages over animal guide dogs for its cost-effectiveness, potential for mass production, and low maintenance burden. However, despite the long history of guide dog robot research, previous studies were…
The functional demands of robotic systems often require completing various tasks or behaviors under the effect of disturbances or uncertain environments. Of increasing interest is the autonomy for dynamic robots, such as multirotors, motor…
Soft robots have gained significant attention due to their flexibility and safety, particularly in human-centric applications. The co-design of structure and controller in soft robotics has presented a longstanding challenge owing to the…
Stabilizing legged robot locomotion on a dynamic rigid surface (DRS) (i.e., rigid surface that moves in the inertial frame) is a complex planning and control problem. The complexity arises due to the hybrid nonlinear walking dynamics…
Stable locomotion in precipitous environments is an essential task for quadruped robots, requiring the ability to resist various external disturbances. Recent neural policies enhance robustness against disturbances by learning to resist…
The ability of bipedal robots to adapt to diverse and unstructured terrain conditions is crucial for their deployment in real-world environments. To this end, we present a novel, bio-inspired robot foot design with stabilizing tarsal…
Robotic locomotion often relies on sequenced gaits to efficiently convert control input into desired motion. Despite extensive studies on gait optimization, achieving smooth and efficient gait transitions remains challenging. In this paper,…