Related papers: Analytic Model for Quadruped Locomotion Task-Space…
To overcome the obstructions imposed by high-dimensional bipedal models, we embed a stable walking motion in an attractive low-dimensional surface of the system's state space. The process begins with trajectory optimization to design an…
Locomotion has seen dramatic progress for walking or running across challenging terrains. However, robotic quadrupeds are still far behind their biological counterparts, such as dogs, which display a variety of agile skills and can use the…
Animals use limbs for both locomotion and manipulation. We aim to equip quadruped robots with similar versatility. This work introduces a system that enables quadruped robots to interact with objects using their legs, inspired by…
Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) for legged locomotion commonly relies on a physics simulator that can accurately predict the behaviors of every degree of freedom of the robot. In contrast, approximate reduced-order models are…
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…
Legged robots are becoming increasingly agile in exhibiting dynamic behaviors such as running and jumping. Usually, such behaviors are either optimized and engineered offline (i.e. the behavior is designed for before it is needed), either…
Planning for legged-wheeled machines is typically done using trajectory optimization because of many degrees of freedom, thus rendering legged-wheeled planners prone to falling prey to bad local minima. We present a combined sampling and…
Humans are able to negotiate downstep behaviors -- both planned and unplanned -- with remarkable agility and ease. The goal of this paper is to systematically study the translation of this human behavior to bipedal walking robots, even if…
We present a model-based framework for robot locomotion that achieves walking based on only 4.5 minutes (45,000 control steps) of data collected on a quadruped robot. To accurately model the robot's dynamics over a long horizon, we…
Reduced-order models (ROM) are popular in online motion planning due to their simplicity. A good ROM for control captures critical task-relevant aspects of the full dynamics while remaining low dimensional. However, planning within the…
Inspired by animals that co-adapt their brain and body to interact with the environment, we present a tendon-driven and over-actuated (i.e., n joint, n+1 actuators) bipedal robot that (i) exploits its backdrivable mechanical properties to…
Quadruped animals are capable of exhibiting a diverse range of locomotion gaits. While progress has been made in demonstrating such gaits on robots, current methods rely on motion priors, dynamics models, or other forms of extensive manual…
Our paper proposes a model predictive controller as a single-task formulation that simultaneously optimizes wheel and torso motions. This online joint velocity and ground reaction force optimization integrates a kinodynamic model of a…
In a world designed for legs, quadrupeds, bipeds, and humanoids have the opportunity to impact emerging robotics applications from logistics, to agriculture, to home assistance. The goal of this survey is to cover the recent progress toward…
Quadruped robots are progressively being integrated into human environments. Despite the growing locomotion capabilities of quadrupedal robots, their interaction with objects in realistic scenes is still limited. While additional robotic…
The enhanced mobility brought by legged locomotion empowers quadrupedal robots to navigate through complex and unstructured environments. However, optimizing agile locomotion while accounting for the varying energy costs of traversing…
Our work aims to make significant strides in understanding unexplored locomotion control paradigms based on the integration of posture manipulation and thrust vectoring. These techniques are commonly seen in nature, such as Chukar birds…
Reproducing the diverse and agile locomotion skills of animals has been a longstanding challenge in robotics. While manually-designed controllers have been able to emulate many complex behaviors, building such controllers involves a…
The problem of biped locomotion at steady speeds is discussed through a Lagrangian formulation developed for velocity-dependent, body driving forces. Human walking on a level surface is analyzed in terms of the data on the resultant…
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…