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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…
Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a popular strategy for controlling robots but is difficult for systems with contact due to the complex nature of hybrid dynamics. To implement MPC for systems with contact, dynamic models are often…
This paper combines the fast Zero-Moment-Point (ZMP) approaches that work well in practice with the broader range of capabilities of a Trajectory Optimization formulation, by optimizing over body motion, footholds and Center of Pressure…
Model predictive control (MPC) has shown great success for controlling complex systems such as legged robots. However, when closing the loop, the performance and feasibility of the finite horizon optimal control problem (OCP) solved at each…
For a robot to be both autonomous and collaborative requires the ability to adapt its movement to a variety of external stimuli, whether these come from humans or other robots. Typically, legged robots have oscillation periods explicitly…
Dynamic locomotion in rough terrain requires accurate foot placement, collision avoidance, and planning of the underactuated dynamics of the system. Reliably optimizing for such motions and interactions in the presence of imperfect and…
For legged robots to match the athletic capabilities of humans and animals, they must not only produce robust periodic walking and running, but also seamlessly switch between nominal locomotion gaits and more specialized transient…
We present a general approach for controlling robotic systems that make and break contact with their environments. Contact-implicit model predictive control (CI-MPC) generalizes linear MPC to contact-rich settings by utilizing a bi-level…
An asymmetric two-link robot supported atop a flat platform by wheels that roll and pivot freely, but do not slip laterally, will develop forward momentum if the joint between the links is actuated internally. In particular, oscillations in…
This paper studies capturability and push recovery for quadrupedal locomotion. Despite the rich literature on capturability analysis and push recovery control for legged robots, existing tools are developed mainly for bipeds or humanoids.…
Quadrupeds are strong candidates for navigating challenging environments because of their agile and dynamic designs. This paper presents a methodology that extends the range of exploration for quadrupedal robots by creating an end-to-end…
A common approach to the generation of walking patterns for humanoid robots consists in adopting a layered control architecture. This paper proposes an architecture composed of three nested control loops. The outer loop exploits a robot…
Traditional one-step preview planning algorithms for bipedal locomotion struggle to generate viable gaits when walking across terrains with restricted footholds, such as stepping stones. To overcome such limitations, this paper introduces a…
We present a learning algorithm for training a single policy that imitates multiple gaits of a walking robot. To achieve this, we use and extend MPC-Net, which is an Imitation Learning approach guided by Model Predictive Control (MPC). The…
When balancing, a humanoid robot can be easily subjected to unexpected disturbances like external pushes. In these circumstances, reactive movements as steps become a necessary requirement in order to avoid potentially harmful falling…
The control of bipedal robotic walking remains a challenging problem in the domains of computation and experiment, due to the multi-body dynamics and various sources of uncertainty. In recent years, there has been a rising trend towards…
In this paper, we consider the problem of adapting a dynamically walking bipedal robot to follow a leading co-worker while engaging in tasks that require physical interaction. Our approach relies on switching among a family of Dynamic…
This article propose a whole-body impedance coordinative control framework for a wheel-legged humanoid robot to achieve adaptability on complex terrains while maintaining robot upper body stability. The framework contains a bi-level control…
Millirobots are a promising robotic platform for many applications due to their small size and low manufacturing costs. Legged millirobots, in particular, can provide increased mobility in complex environments and improved scaling of…
Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…