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Perceiving and mapping the surroundings are essential for enabling autonomous navigation in any robotic platform. The algorithm class that enables accurate mapping while correcting the odometry errors present in most robotics systems is…
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…
Robot feet are crucial for maintaining dynamic stability and propelling the body during walking, especially on uneven terrains. Traditionally, robot feet were mostly designed as flat and stiff pieces of metal, which meets its limitations…
This paper presents Stanford Doggo, a quasi-direct-drive quadruped capable of dynamic locomotion. This robot matches or exceeds common performance metrics of state-of-the-art legged robots. In terms of vertical jumping agility, a measure of…
This paper presents advancements in the functionalities of the Recupera-Reha lower extremity exoskeleton robot. The exoskeleton features a series-parallel hybrid design characterized by multiple kinematic loops resulting in 148 degrees of…
The field of robotics faces significant challenges related to the complexity and interoperability of existing middleware frameworks, like ROS2, which can be difficult for new developers to adopt. To address these issues, we propose…
We present BricksRL, a platform designed to democratize access to robotics for reinforcement learning research and education. BricksRL facilitates the creation, design, and training of custom LEGO robots in the real world by interfacing…
The demand and the potential for automation in the construction sector is unmatched, particularly for increasing environmental sustainability, improving worker safety and reducing labor shortages. We have developed an autonomous walking…
Robotics applications process large amounts of data in real-time and require compute platforms that provide high performance and energy-efficiency. FPGAs are well-suited for many of these applications, but there is a reluctance in the…
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish from the small or basic life form (Escherichia coli, the amoeba, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and…
Soft robots have a myriad of potentials because of their intrinsically compliant bodies, enabling safe interactions with humans and adaptability to unpredictable environments. However, most of them have limited actuation speeds, require…
Robotics hand/grippers nowadays are not limited to manufacturing lines; instead, they are widely utilized in cluttered environments, such as restaurants, farms, and warehouses. In such scenarios, they need to deal with high uncertainty of…
ROBEL is an open-source platform of cost-effective robots designed for reinforcement learning in the real world. ROBEL introduces two robots, each aimed to accelerate reinforcement learning research in different task domains: D'Claw is a…
Small-scale robots offer significant potential in minimally-invasive medical procedures. Due to the nature of soft biological tissues, however, robots are exposed to complex environments with various challenges in locomotion, which is…
This paper introduces a system of data collection acceleration and real-to-sim transferring for surface recognition on a quadruped robot. The system features a mechanical single-leg setup capable of stepping on various easily…
With inspiration from arthropods' exoskeletons, we designed a simple, easily manufactured, semi-rigid structure with flexible joints that can passively damp impact energy. This exoskeleton fuses the protective shell to the main robot…
Physical joint limits are common in legged robots and can restrict workspace, constrain gait design, and increase the risk of hardware damage. This paper introduces MiNI-Q^2, a miniature, wire-free quadruped robot with independently…
Tiny flying robots hold great potential for search-and-rescue, safety inspections, and environmental monitoring, but their small size limits conventional sensing-especially with poor-lighting, smoke, dust or reflective obstacles. Inspired…
In this paper, with a view toward deployment of light-weight control frameworks for bipedal walking robots, we realize end-foot trajectories that are shaped by a single linear feedback policy. We learn this policy via a model-free and a…
Despite recent efforts to collect multi-task, multi-embodiment datasets, to design recipes for training Vision-Language-Action models (VLAs), and to showcase these models on different robot platforms, generalist cross-embodiment robot…