Related papers: Scaling down an insect-size microrobot, HAMR-VI in…
High-speed locomotion of animals gives them tremendous advantages in exploring, hunting, and escaping from predators in varying environments. Enlightened by the fast-running gait of mammals like cheetahs and wolves, we designed and…
Flying insects can perform rapid, sophisticated maneuvers like backflips, sharp banked turns, and in-flight collision recovery. To emulate these in aerial robots weighing less than a gram, known as flying insect robots (FIRs), a fast and…
Untethered soft robots are essential for advancing the real-world deployment of soft robotic systems in diverse and multitasking environments. Inspired by soft-bodied inchworm, we present a fully untethered soft robot with a curved,…
Sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) for humanoid robots with high-gear ratio actuators remains challenging due to complex actuator dynamics and the absence of torque sensors. To address this, we propose a novel RL framework leveraging…
We developed a new class of soft locomotive robots that can self-assemble into a preprogrammed configuration and vary their stiffness afterward in a highly integrated, compact body using contracting-cord particle jamming (CCPJ). We…
Bipedal robots are a fascinating and advanced category of robots designed to mimic human form and locomotion. The development of the bipedal robots is a significant milestone in robotics. However, even the most advanced bipedal robots are…
Although recent years have seen significant progress of humanoid robots in walking and running, the frequent foot strikes with ground during these locomotion gaits inevitably generate high instantaneous impact forces, which leads to…
Multimodal locomotion capability is an emerging topic in robotics field, and various novel mobile robots have been developed to enable the maneuvering in both terrestrial and aerial domains. Among these hybrid robots, several…
Under-actuated compliant robotic systems offer a promising approach to mitigating actuation and control challenges by harnessing pre-designed, embodied dynamic behaviors. This paper presents Flix-Walker, a novel, untethered,…
Legged machines are becoming increasingly agile and adaptive but they have so far lacked the morphological diversity of legged animals, which have been rearranged and reshaped to fill millions of niches. Unlike their biological…
In this paper, we introduce advances in the sensor suite of an autonomous flying insect robot (FIR) weighing less than a gram. FIRs, because of their small weight and size, offer unparalleled advantages in terms of material cost and…
Robots excel at avoiding obstacles but struggle to traverse complex 3-D terrain with cluttered large obstacles. By contrast, insects like cockroaches excel at doing so. Recent research in our lab elucidated how locomotor transitions emerge…
We present SpaceHopper, a three-legged, small-scale robot designed for future mobile exploration of asteroids and moons. The robot weighs 5.2kg and has a body size of 245mm while using space-qualifiable components. Furthermore,…
Achieving short-distance flight helps improve the efficiency of humanoid robots moving in complex environments (e.g., crossing large obstacles or reaching high places) for rapid emergency missions. This study proposes a design of a flying…
The purpose of this research is to design, fabricate and test a tendon driven a continuum soft robot with three modular segments, each of which has a tunable stiffness enabled by layer jamming technology. Compared with previous studies, the…
The potential of Martian lava tubes for resource extraction and habitat sheltering highlights the need for robots capable to undertake the grueling task of their exploration. Driven by this motivation, in this work we introduce a legged…
Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…
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…
We present a new open-source torque-controlled legged robot system, with a low-cost and low-complexity actuator module at its core. It consists of a high-torque brushless DC motor and a low-gear-ratio transmission suitable for impedance and…
An important function of autonomous microrobots is the ability to perform robust movement over terrain. This paper explores an edge ML approach to microrobot locomotion, allowing for on-device, lower latency control under compute, memory,…