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Robots that traverse natural terrain must interpret contact forces generated under highly dynamic conditions. However, most terrain characterization approaches rely on quasi-static assumptions that neglect velocity- and…
The field of autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is in continuous growth and increasing levels of autonomy have been reached in the last few years. However, the task becomes more challenging when the focus is on the…
We present TerraPN, a novel method that learns the surface properties (traction, bumpiness, deformability, etc.) of complex outdoor terrains directly from robot-terrain interactions through self-supervised learning, and uses it for…
High-fidelity simulators for the lunar surface provide a digital environment for extensive testing of rover operations and mission planning. However, current simulators focus on either visual realism or physical accuracy, which limits their…
Optimizing energy consumption for robot navigation in fields requires energy-cost maps. However, obtaining such a map is still challenging, especially for large, uneven terrains. Physics-based energy models work for uniform, flat surfaces…
Legged robots can traverse a wide variety of terrains, some of which may be challenging for wheeled robots, such as stairs or highly uneven surfaces. However, quadruped robots face stability challenges on slippery surfaces. This can be…
The ability to both recognize and discover terrain characteristics is an important function required for many autonomous ground robots such as social robots, assistive robots, autonomous vehicles, and ground exploration robots. Recognizing…
Natural environments pose significant challenges for autonomous robot navigation, particularly due to their unstructured and ever-changing nature. Hiking trails, with their dynamic conditions influenced by weather, vegetation, and human…
Both in terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments, the precise and informative model of the ground and the surface ahead is crucial for navigation and obstacle avoidance. The ground surface is not always flat and it may be sloped, bumpy…
Robotic and human lunar landings are a focus of future NASA missions. Precision landing capabilities are vital to guarantee the success of the mission, and the safety of the lander and crew. During the approach to the surface there are…
We present a visual and inertial-based terrain classification network (VINet) for robotic navigation over different traversable surfaces. We use a novel navigation-based labeling scheme for terrain classification and generalization on…
Semantic segmentation of outdoor street scenes plays a key role in applications such as autonomous driving, mobile robotics, and assistive technology for visually-impaired pedestrians. For these applications, accurately distinguishing…
Robot navigation traditionally relies on building an explicit map that is used to plan collision-free trajectories to a desired target. In deformable, complex terrain, using geometric-based approaches can fail to find a path due to…
Recent studies of optimization methods and GNC of spacecraft near small bodies focusing on descent, landing, rendezvous, etc., with key safety constraints such as line-of-sight conic zones and soft landings have shown promising results;…
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…
Existing earthmoving autonomy is largely confined to highly controlled and well-characterized environments due to the complexity of vehicle-terrain interaction dynamics and the partial observability of the terrain resulting from unknown and…
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…
Traversing terrain with good traction is crucial for achieving fast off-road navigation. Instead of manually designing costs based on terrain features, existing methods learn terrain properties directly from data via self-supervision to…
Simulation of vehicle motion in planetary environments is challenging. This is due to the modeling of complex terrain, optical conditions, and terrain-aware vehicle dynamics. One of the critical issues of typical simulators is that they…
We consider the visual feature selection to improve the estimation quality required for the accurate navigation of a robot. We build upon a key property that asserts: contributions of trackable features (landmarks) appear linearly in the…