Related papers: Learning Extreme Hummingbird Maneuvers on Flapping…
Promoting exploratory movements through contingent feedback can positively influence motor development in infancy. Our ongoing work gears toward the development of a robot-assisted contingency learning environment through the use of small…
Winged blimps operate across distinct aerodynamic regimes that cannot be adequately captured by a single model. At high speeds and small angles of attack, their dynamics exhibit strong coupling between lift and attitude, resembling…
A hyper-redundant robotic arm is a manipulator with many degrees of freedom, capable of executing tasks in cluttered environments where robotic arms with fewer degrees of freedom are unable to operate. This paper introduces a new method for…
In this paper, we present a novel developmental reinforcement learning-based controller for a quadcopter with thrust vectoring capabilities. This multirotor UAV design has tilt-enabled rotors. It utilizes the rotor force magnitude and…
Many elastic structures have two possible equilibrium states: from umbrellas that become inverted in a sudden gust of wind, to nano-electromechanical switches, origami patterns and the hopper popper, which jumps after being turned…
Robust locomotion control depends on accurate state estimations. However, the sensors of most legged robots can only provide partial and noisy observations, making the estimation particularly challenging, especially for external states like…
Underactuated legged robots depict highly nonlinear and complex dynamical behaviors that create significant challenges in accurately modeling system dynamics using both first principles and system identification approaches. Hence, it makes…
For centuries, soaring birds -- such as albatrosses and eagles -- have been mysterious and intriguing for biologists, physicists, aeronautical/control engineers, and applied mathematicians. These fascinating biological organisms have the…
While it is relatively easier to train humanoid robots to mimic specific locomotion skills, it is more challenging to learn from various motions and adhere to continuously changing commands. These robots must accurately track motion…
This paper presents the application of an iterative learning control scheme to improve the position tracking performance for an articulated soft robotic arm during aggressive maneuvers. Two antagonistically arranged, inflatable bellows…
Humanoid robots are promising to acquire various skills by imitating human behaviors. However, existing algorithms are only capable of tracking smooth, low-speed human motions, even with delicate reward and curriculum design. This paper…
Birds rely on active high-acceleration morphing and flapping to navigate complex airflows, but they can also maintain stable fixed-wing postures under persistent atmospheric disturbances. Here, we show that avian wings exhibit aerodynamic…
We present a general, two-stage reinforcement learning approach to create robust policies that can be deployed on real robots without any additional training using a single demonstration generated by trajectory optimization. The…
Learning-based controllers have achieved impressive performance in agile quadrotor flight but typically rely on massive training in simulation, necessitating accurate system identification for effective Sim2Real transfer. However, even with…
Push recovery during locomotion will facilitate the deployment of humanoid robots in human-centered environments. In this paper, we present a unified framework for walking control and push recovery for humanoid robots, leveraging the arms…
This paper studies real-time motion planning and control for ball bumping motion with quadruped robots. To enable the quadruped to bump the flying ball with different initializations, we develop a nonlinear trajectory optimization-based…
Falling is an inherent risk of humanoid mobility. Maintaining stability is thus a primary safety focus in robot control and learning, yet no existing approach fully averts loss of balance. When instability does occur, prior work addresses…
Quadruped robots are machines intended for challenging and harsh environments. Despite the progress in locomotion strategy, safely recovering from unexpected falls or planned drops is still an open problem. It is further made more difficult…
Humanoid robots are envisioned to adapt demonstrated motions to diverse real-world conditions while accurately preserving motion patterns. Existing motion prior approaches enable well adaptability with a few motions but often sacrifice…
Flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles offer quieter and safer operation than rotary-wing drones, yet achieving precise autonomous control of bird-scale ornithopters remains challenging: lift, airspeed, and turning authority are tightly…