Related papers: First Steps: Latent-Space Control with Semantic Co…

Planning locomotion trajectories for legged microrobots is challenging because of their complex morphology, high frequency passive dynamics, and discontinuous contact interactions with their environment. Consequently, such research is often…

This paper presents a motion planning algorithm for quadruped locomotion based on density functions. We decompose the locomotion problem into a high-level density planner and a model predictive controller (MPC). Due to density functions…

A hierarchical control architecture is presented for energy-efficient control of legged robots subject to variety of linear/nonlinear inequality constraints such as Coulomb friction cones, switching unilateral contacts, actuator saturation…

Modern learning-based locomotion controllers typically rely on fully trainable deep neural networks with a large number of parameters. This paper studies a different design point for end-to-end control: whether effective quadruped…

The problem of dynamic locomotion over rough terrain requires both accurate foot placement together with an emphasis on dynamic stability. Existing approaches to this problem prioritize immediate safe foot placement over longer term dynamic…

This paper aims to increase the safety and reliability of executing trajectories planned for robots with non-trivial dynamics given a light-weight, approximate dynamics model. Scenarios include mobile robots navigating through workspaces…

Latent space steering methods provide a practical approach to controlling large language models by applying steering vectors to intermediate activations, guiding outputs toward desired behaviors while avoiding retraining. Despite their…

Recent years have seen a surge in commercially-available and affordable quadrupedal robots, with many of these platforms being actively used in research and industry. As the availability of legged robots grows, so does the need for…

Legged robots are typically in rigid contact with the environment at multiple locations, which add a degree of complexity to their control. We present a method to control the motion and a subset of the contact forces of a floating-base…

A multi-joint enabled robot requires extensive mathematical calculations to determine the end effector's position with respect to the other connective joints involved and their corresponding frames in a specific coordinate system. If a…

We propose a novel, multi-layered planning approach for computing paths that satisfy both kinodynamic and spatiotemporal constraints. Our three-part framework first establishes potential sequences to meet spatial constraints, using them to…

We present a footstep planning policy for quadrupedal locomotion that is able to directly take into consideration a-priori safety information in its decisions. At its core, a learning process analyzes terrain patches, classifying each…

High-speed legged navigation in discrete and geometrically complex environments is a challenging task because of the high-degree-of-freedom dynamics and long-horizon, nonconvex nature of the optimization problem. In this work, we propose a…

Soft robotic manipulators offer operational advantage due to their compliant and deformable structures. However, their inherently nonlinear dynamics presents substantial challenges. Traditional analytical methods often depend on simplifying…

Recently, quadrupedal locomotion has achieved significant success, but their manipulation capabilities, particularly in handling large objects, remain limited, restricting their usefulness in demanding real-world applications such as search…

Modeling the dynamic behavior of deformable objects is crucial for creating realistic digital worlds. While conventional simulations produce high-quality motions, their computational costs are often prohibitive. Subspace simulation…

Locomotion on dynamic rigid surface (i.e., rigid surface accelerating in an inertial frame) presents complex challenges for controller design, which are essential for deploying humanoid robots in dynamic real-world environments such as…

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…

Quadruped robots are often designed with rigid feet to simplify control and maintain stable contact during locomotion. While this approach is straightforward, it limits the ability of the legs to absorb impact forces and reuse stored…

Motion planning is a mature area of research in robotics with many well-established methods based on optimization or sampling the state space, suitable for solving kinematic motion planning. However, when dynamic motions under constraints…