Related papers: Towards Crossing the Reality Gap with Evolved Plas…
In the evolving landscape of high-speed agile quadrotor flight, achieving precise trajectory tracking at the platform's operational limits is paramount. Controllers must handle actuator constraints, exhibit robustness to disturbances, and…
Reinforcement learning (RL) offers transformative potential for robotic control in space. We present the first on-orbit demonstration of RL-based autonomous control of a free-flying robot, the NASA Astrobee, aboard the International Space…
Neurotechnologies are transforming how we measure, interpret, and modulate brain-body interactions, integrating real-time sensing, computation, and stimulation to enable precise physiological control. They hold transformative potential…
Sim-to real gap in Reinforcement Learning is when a model trained in a simulator does not translate to the real world. This is a problem for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) as vehicle dynamics can vary from simulation to reality, and also from…
Neuromorphic computing mimics computational principles of the brain in $\textit{silico}$ and motivates research into event-based vision and spiking neural networks (SNNs). Event cameras (ECs) exclusively capture local intensity changes and…
The robotics field is evolving towards data-driven, end-to-end learning, inspired by multimodal large models. However, reliance on expensive real-world data limits progress. Simulators offer cost-effective alternatives, but the gap between…
Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms can enable high-maneuverability in unmanned aerial vehicles (MAVs), but transferring them from simulation to real-world use is challenging. Variable-pitch propeller (VPP) MAVs offer greater agility,…
The physical coupling between robots has the potential to improve the capabilities of multi-robot systems in challenging manufacturing processes. However, the path tracking accuracy of physically coupled robots is not studied adequately,…
Biological plastic neural networks are systems of extraordinary computational capabilities shaped by evolution, development, and lifetime learning. The interplay of these elements leads to the emergence of adaptive behavior and…
Synaptic plasticity allows cortical circuits to learn new tasks and to adapt to changing environments. How do cortical circuits use plasticity to acquire functions such as decision-making or working memory? Neurons are connected in complex…
Recently, researchers have explored control methods that embrace nonlinear dynamic coupling instead of suppressing it. Such designs leverage dynamical coupling for communication between different parts of the robot. Morphological…
There are many artificial intelligence algorithms for autonomous driving, but directly installing these algorithms on vehicles is unrealistic and expensive. At the same time, many of these algorithms need an environment to train and…
We focus on the problem of reliably training Reinforcement Learning (RL) models (agents) for stable low-level control in embedded systems and test our methods on a high-performance, custom-built quadrotor platform. A common but often…
Imagine a robot controller with the ability to adapt like human synapses, dynamically rewiring itself to overcome unforeseen challenges in real time. This paper proposes a novel zero-shot adaptation mechanism for evolutionary robotics,…
Computational modeling is becoming a widely used methodology in modern neuroscience. However, as the complexity of the phenomena under study increases, the analysis of the results emerging from the simulations concomitantly becomes more…
Since the advent of mobile robots, obstacle detection has been a topic of great interest. It has also been a subject of study in neuroscience, where flying insects and bats could be considered two of the most interesting cases in terms of…
The complexity of a legged robot's environment or task can inform how specialised its gait must be to ensure success. Evolving specialised robotic gaits demands many evaluations - acceptable for computer simulations, but not for physical…
Control theory deals with the study of controlling dynamical systems. Robots today are growing increasingly complex and moving out of factory floors to real world environment. These robots have to interact with real world environment…
Neuromorphic engineering is an emerging research domain that aims to realize important implementation advantages that brain-inspired technologies can offer over classical digital technologies, including energy efficiency, adaptability, and…
Differentiable simulators provide an avenue for closing the sim-to-real gap by enabling the use of efficient, gradient-based optimization algorithms to find the simulation parameters that best fit the observed sensor readings. Nonetheless,…