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Attaining animal-like legged locomotion on rough outdoor terrain with sparse foothold affordances -a primary use-case for legs vs other forms of locomotion- is a largely open problem. New advancements in control and perception have enabled…

Legged locomotion benefits from embodied sensing, where perception emerges from the physical interaction between body and environment. We present a soft-surfaced, vision-based tactile foot sensor that endows a bipedal robot with a skin-like…

The ability of bipedal robots to adapt to diverse and unstructured terrain conditions is crucial for their deployment in real-world environments. To this end, we present a novel, bio-inspired robot foot design with stabilizing tarsal…

Legged robots have demonstrated high efficiency and effectiveness in unstructured and dynamic environments. However, it is still challenging for legged robots to achieve rapid and efficient locomotion on deformable, yielding substrates,…

This paper introduces the Terrain Recognition And Contact Force Estimation Paw, a compact and sensorized shoe designed for legged robots. The paw end-effector is made of silicon that deforms upon the application of contact forces, while an…

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…

We study the problem of bipedal robot navigation in complex environments with uncertain and rough terrain. In particular, we consider a scenario in which the robot is expected to reach a desired goal location by traversing an environment…

Quadruped robots are currently a widespread platform for robotics research, thanks to powerful Reinforcement Learning controllers and the availability of cheap and robust commercial platforms. However, to broaden the adoption of the…

Legged robot navigation in extreme environments can hinder the use of cameras and laser scanners due to darkness, air obfuscation or sensor damage. In these conditions, proprioceptive sensing will continue to work reliably. In this paper,…

Task space trajectory tracking for quadruped robots plays a crucial role on achieving dexterous maneuvers in unstructured environments. To fulfill the control objective, the robot should apply forces through the contact of the legs with the…

Contact modeling plays a central role in motion planning, simulation, and control of legged robots, as legged locomotion is realized through contact. The two prevailing approaches to model the contact consider rigid and compliant premise at…

Inspired by the digital twinning systems, a novel real-time digital double framework is developed to enhance robot perception of the terrain conditions. Based on the very same physical model and motion control, this work exploits the use of…

Traversing environments with arbitrary obstacles poses significant challenges for bipedal robots. In some cases, whole body motions may be necessary to maneuver around an obstacle, but most existing footstep planners can only select from a…

In order to manipulate a deformable object, such as rope or cloth, in unstructured environments, robots need a way to estimate its current shape. However, tracking the shape of a deformable object can be challenging because of the object's…

Although haptic sensing has recently been used for legged robot localization in extreme environments where a camera or LiDAR might fail, the problem of efficiently representing the haptic signatures in a learned prior map is still open.…

Legged robots are well-suited for broad exploration tasks in complex environments with yielding terrain. Understanding robotic foot-terrain interactions is critical for safe locomotion and walking efficiency for legged robots. This paper…

The popularity of mobile robots has been steadily growing, with these robots being increasingly utilized to execute tasks previously completed by human workers. For bipedal robots to see this same success, robust autonomous navigation…

Robotic mapping is useful in scientific applications that involve surveying unstructured environments. This paper presents a target-oriented mapping system for sparsely distributed geologic surface features, such as precariously balanced…

The last several years have seen significant progress in using depth cameras for tracking articulated objects such as human bodies, hands, and robotic manipulators. Most approaches focus on tracking skeletal parameters of a fixed shape…

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…