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In recent years, artificial feet based on soft robotics and under-actuation principles emerged to improve mobility on challenging terrains. This paper presents the application of the MuJoCo physics engine to realize a digital twin of an…
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…
Quadrupedal robots have emerged as versatile agents capable of locomoting and manipulating in complex environments. Traditional designs typically rely on the robot's inherent body parts or incorporate top-mounted arms for manipulation…
In lunar and planetary exploration, legged robots have attracted significant attention as an alternative to conventional wheeled robots, which struggle to traverse rough and uneven terrain. To enable locomotion over highly irregular and…
Loco-manipulation, physical interaction of various objects that is concurrently coordinated with locomotion, remains a major challenge for legged robots due to the need for both precise end-effector control and robustness to unmodeled…
Legged robots need to be capable of walking on diverse terrain conditions. In this paper, we present a novel reinforcement learning framework for learning locomotion on non-rigid dynamic terrains. Specifically, our framework can generate…
In this paper, we propose a novel design of an electrically actuated robotic leg, called the DecARt (Decoupled Actuation Robot) Leg, aimed at performing agile locomotion. This design incorporates several new features, such as the use of a…
Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…
Dynamic quadrupedal locomotion over rough terrains reveals remarkable progress over the last few decades. Small-scale quadruped robots are adequately flexible and adaptable to traverse uneven terrains along sagittal direction, such as…
Wheeled bipedal robots have garnered increasing attention in exploration and inspection. However, most research simplifies calculations by ignoring leg dynamics, thereby restricting the robot's full motion potential. Additionally, robots…
This paper describes the control, and evaluation of a new human-scaled biped robot with liquid cooled viscoelastic actuators (VLCA). Based on the lessons learned from previous work from our team on VLCA [1], we present a new system design…
Multi-legged elongate robots hold promise for maneuvering through complex environments. Prior work has demonstrated that reliable locomotion can be achieved using open-loop body undulation and foot placement on rugose terrain. However,…
Most legged robots are built with leg structures from serially mounted links and actuators and are controlled through complex controllers and sensor feedback. In comparison, animals developed multi-segment legs, mechanical coupling between…
Simultaneous locomotion and manipulation enables robots to interact with their environment beyond the constraints of a fixed base. However, coordinating legged locomotion with arm manipulation, while considering safety and compliance during…
As both legged robots and embedded compute have become more capable, researchers have started to focus on field deployment of these robots. Robust autonomy in unstructured environments requires perception of the world around the robot in…
Legged locomotion holds the premise of universal mobility, a critical capability for many real-world robotic applications. Both model-based and learning-based approaches have advanced the field of legged locomotion in the past three…
This paper presents design and control innovations of wearable robots that tackle two barriers to widespread adoption of powered exoskeletons, namely restriction of human movement and versatile control of wearable co-robot systems. First,…
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by the…
Natural organisms utilize distributed actuation through their musculoskeletal systems to adapt their gait for traversing diverse terrains or to morph their bodies for varied tasks. A longstanding challenge in robotics is to emulate this…
Legged robots constructed from soft materials are commonly claimed to demonstrate safer, more robust environmental interactions than their rigid counterparts. However, this motivating feature of soft robots requires more rigorous…