Related papers: Improved Performance on Moving-Mass Hopping Robots…
Animals locomote robustly and agile, albeit significant sensorimotor delays of their nervous system. The sensorimotor control of legged robots is implemented with much higher frequencies-often in the kilohertz range-and sensor and actuator…
Environments with large terrain height variations present great challenges for legged robot locomotion. Drawing inspiration from fire ants' collective assembly behavior, we study strategies that can enable two ``connectable'' robots to…
This paper studies jumping for wheeled-bipedal robots, a motion that takes full advantage of the benefits from the hybrid wheeled and legged design features. A comprehensive hierarchical scheme for motion planning and control of jumping…
We present a novel pneumatic augmentation to traditional electric motor-actuated legged robot to increase intermittent power density to perform infrequent explosive hopping behaviors. The pneumatic system is composed of a pneumatic pump, a…
Micro-macro models provide a powerful tool to study the relationship between microscale mechanisms and emergent macroscopic behavior. However, the detailed microscopic modeling may require tracking and evolving a high-dimensional…
Wearable and legged robot designers face multiple challenges when choosing actuation. Traditional fully actuated designs using electric motors are multifunctional but oversized and inefficient for bearing conservative loads and for being…
In this work, we evaluate the use of aerial drone hover constraints in a multisensor fusion of ground robot and drone data to improve the localization performance of a drone. In particular, we build upon our prior work on cooperative…
Accurate human motion prediction is crucial for safe human-robot collaboration but remains challenging due to the complexity of modeling intricate and variable human movements. This paper presents Parallel Multi-scale Incremental Prediction…
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…
Modular robotics holds immense potential for space exploration, where reliability, repairability, and reusability are critical for cost-effective missions. Coordination between heterogeneous units is paramount for precision tasks -- whether…
Bipedal robots adapt to the environment of the modern society due to the similarity of movement to humans, and therefore they are a good partner for humans. However, maintaining the stability of these robots during walking/running motion is…
A deformable land-air robot is introduced with excellent driving and flying capabilities, offering a smooth switching mechanism between the two modes. An elaborate coupled dynamics model is established for the robot, including rotors,…
To achieve highly dynamic jumps of legged robots, it is essential to control the rotational dynamics of the robot. In this paper, we aim to improve the jumping performance by proposing a unified model for planning highly dynamic jumps that…
Legged locomotion in humans is governed by natural dynamics of the human body and neural control. One mechanism that is assumed to contribute to the high efficiency of human walking is the impulsive ankle push-off, which potentially powers…
Enhancing the explosive power output of the knee joints is critical for improving the agility and obstacle-crossing capabilities of humanoid robots. However, a mismatch between the knee-to-center-of-mass (CoM) transmission ratio and jumping…
This work explores an innovative algorithm designed to enhance the mobility of underactuated bipedal robots across challenging terrains, especially when navigating through spaces with constrained opportunities for foot support, like steps…
Effective human-robot teaming is crucial for the practical deployment of robots in human workspaces. However, optimizing joint human-robot plans remains a challenge due to the difficulty of modeling individualized human capabilities and…
Flapping-wing insects, birds, and robots are thought to offset the high power cost of oscillatory wing motion by using elastic elements for energy storage and return. Insects possess highly resilient elastic regions in their flight anatomy…
This paper presents a Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) framework for trajectory optimization (TO) of hybrid systems with state-based switching. The proposed Hybrid Systems DDP (HS-DDP) approach is considered for application to…
Springs can provide force at zero net energy cost by recycling negative mechanical work to benefit motor-driven robots or spring-augmented humans. However, humans have limited force and range of motion, and motors have a limited ability to…