Related papers: Bruce -- Design and Development of a Dynamic Hexap…

SLOT (Soft Legged Omnidirectional Tetrapod), a tendon-driven soft quadruped robot with 3D-printed TPU legs, is presented to study physics-informed modeling and control of compliant legged locomotion using only four actuators. Each leg is…

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…

Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…

Biped robots have plenty of benefits over wheeled, quadruped, or hexapod robots due to their ability to behave like human beings in tough and non-flat environments. Deformable terrain is another challenge for biped robots as it has to deal…

With academic and commercial interest for humanoid robots peaking, multiple platforms are being developed. Through a high level of customization, they showcase impressive performance. Most of these systems remain closed-source or have high…

Limbless creatures can crawl on flat surfaces by deforming their bodies and interacting with asperities on the ground, offering a biological blueprint for designing efficient limbless robots. Inspired by this natural locomotion, we present…

The quality of the visual feedback can vary significantly on a legged robot that is meant to traverse unknown and unstructured terrains. The map of the environment, acquired with online state-of-the-art algorithms, often degrades after a…

Deep reinforcement learning has emerged as a popular and powerful way to develop locomotion controllers for quadruped robots. Common approaches have largely focused on learning actions directly in joint space, or learning to modify and…

It has been a great challenge to develop robots that are able to perform complex movement patterns with high speed and, simultaneously, high accuracy. Copepods are animals found in freshwater and saltwater habitats that can have extremely…

Planetary exploration missions require robots capable of navigating extreme and unknown environments. While wheeled rovers have dominated past missions, their mobility is limited to traversable surfaces. Legged robots, especially…

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…

Multi-legged robots offer enhanced stability to navigate complex terrains with their multiple legs interacting with the environment. However, how to effectively coordinate the multiple legs in a larger action exploration space to generate…

Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…

Applications of mobile ground robots demand high speed and agility while navigating in complex indoor environments. These present an ongoing challenge in mobile robotics. A system with these specifications would be of great use for a wide…

Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…

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…

Legged robots traversing in confined environments could find their only path is blocked by obstacles. In circumstances where the obstacles are movable, a multilegged robot can manipulate the obstacles using its legs to allow it to continue…

Robot feet are crucial for maintaining dynamic stability and propelling the body during walking, especially on uneven terrains. Traditionally, robot feet were mostly designed as flat and stiff pieces of metal, which meets its limitations…

Locomotion on granular slopes such as sand dunes remains a fundamental challenge for legged robots due to reduced shear strength and gravity-induced anisotropic yielding of granular media. Using a hexapedal robot on a tiltable granular bed,…

Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…