Related papers: Diversity-based Design Assist for Large Legged Rob…

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…

To be useful tools in real scenarios, humanoid robots must realize tasks dynamically. This means that they must be capable of applying substantial forces, rapidly swinging their limbs, and also mitigating impacts that may occur during the…

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…

Real-world robotic tasks require complex reward functions. When we define the problem the robot needs to solve, we pretend that a designer specifies this complex reward exactly, and it is set in stone from then on. In practice, however,…

Multisection continuum arms offer complementary characteristics to those of traditional rigid-bodied robots. Inspired by biological appendages, such as elephant trunks and octopus arms, these robots trade rigidity for compliance, accuracy…

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) techniques enable robots to learn and generalize tasks from user demonstrations, eliminating the need for coding expertise among end-users. One established technique to implement LfD in robots is to encode…

Individualized manufacturing is becoming an important approach as a means to fulfill increasingly diverse and specific consumer requirements and expectations. While there are various solutions to the implementation of the manufacturing…

Machine learning techniques rely on large and diverse datasets for generalization. Computer vision, natural language processing, and other applications can often reuse public datasets to train many different models. However, due to…

Legged robots are physically capable of navigating a diverse variety of environments and overcoming a wide range of obstructions. For example, in a search and rescue mission, a legged robot could climb over debris, crawl through gaps, and…

When limited by their own morphologies, humans and some species of animals have the remarkable ability to use objects from the environment toward accomplishing otherwise impossible tasks. Robots might similarly unlock a range of additional…

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the use of robotic technology at home. A number of service robots appeared on the market, supporting customers in the execution of everyday tasks. Roughly at the same time, consumer…

Optimizing gait stability for legged robots is a difficult problem. Even on level surfaces, effectively traversing across different textures (e.g., carpet) rests on dynamically tuning parameters in multidimensional space. Inspired by…

In this paper, we deal with the problem of full-body path planning for walking robots. The state of walking robots is defined in multi-dimensional space. Path planning requires defining the path of the feet and the robot's body. Moreover,…

The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…

This paper presents two types of extended diffeomorphism designs to compensate for spatial placement differences between robot workspaces. Teleoperation of multiple robots is attracting attention to expand the utilization of the robot…

The development of assistive robots for social collaboration raises critical questions about responsible and inclusive design, especially when interacting with individuals from protected groups such as those with disabilities or advanced…

Selecting robot design parameters can be challenging since these parameters are often coupled with the performance of the controller and, therefore, the resulting capabilities of the robot. This leads to a time-consuming and often expensive…

This paper introduces a user-driven evolutionary algorithm based on Quality Diversity (QD) search. During a design session, the user iteratively selects among presented alternatives and their selections affect the upcoming results. We aim…

Supernumerary robotic limbs (SLs) have the potential to transform a wide range of human activities, yet their usability remains limited by key technical challenges, particularly in ensuring safety and achieving versatile control. Here, we…

Quality-Diversity optimisation algorithms enable the evolution of collections of both high-performing and diverse solutions. These collections offer the possibility to quickly adapt and switch from one solution to another in case it is not…