Related papers: Geometric Heat Flow Method for Legged Locomotion P…
Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…
Taking inspiration from the natural gait transition mechanism of quadrupeds, devising a good gait transition strategy is important for quadruped robots to achieve energy-efficient locomotion on various terrains and velocities. While…
This paper reports a novel result: with proper robot models on matrix Lie groups, one can formulate the kinodynamic motion planning problem for rigid body systems as \emph{exact} polynomial optimization problems that can be relaxed as…
Complex multibody legged robots can have complex rotational control challenges. In this paper, we propose a concise way to understand and formulate a \emph{whole-body orientation} that (i) depends on system configuration only and not a…
Developing feasible body trajectories for legged systems on arbitrary terrains is a challenging task. In this paper, we present a paradigm that allows to design feasible Center of Mass (CoM) and body trajectories in an efficient manner. In…
We present an efficient algorithm for motion planning and control of a robot system with a high number of degrees-of-freedom. These include high-DOF soft robots or an articulated robot interacting with a deformable environment. Our approach…
This paper reports on developing an integrated framework for safety-aware informative motion planning suitable for legged robots. The information-gathering planner takes a dense stochastic map of the environment into account, while safety…
Legged robots offer several advantages when navigating unstructured environments, but they often fall short of the efficiency achieved by wheeled robots. One promising strategy to improve their energy economy is to leverage their natural…
For robots to work alongside humans and perform in unstructured environments, they must learn new motion skills and adapt them to unseen situations on the fly. This demands learning models that capture relevant motion patterns, while…
Voxel-based structures provide a modular, mechanically flexible periodic lattice which can be used as a soft robot through internal deformations. To engage these structures for robotic tasks, we use a finite element method to characterize…
Simplified models of the dynamics such as the linear inverted pendulum model (LIPM) have proven to perform well for biped walking on flat ground. However, for more complex tasks the assumptions of these models can become limiting. For…
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…
Data-driven models of robot motion constructed using principles from Geometric Mechanics have been shown to produce useful predictions of robot motion for a variety of robots. For robots with a useful number of DoF, these geometric…
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…
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…
Our goal is to make robotics more accessible to casual users by reducing the domain knowledge required in designing and building robots. Towards this goal, we present an interactive computational design system that enables users to design…
Legged robot locomotion is hindered by a mismatch between applications where legs can outperform wheels or treads, most of which feature deformable substrates, and existing tools for planning and control, most of which assume flat, rigid…
Developing robust locomotion for humanoid robots is a complex task due to the unstable nature of these robots and also to the unpredictability of the terrain. A robust locomotion planner is one of the fundamental components for generating…
Human motion taxonomies serve as high-level hierarchical abstractions that classify how humans move and interact with their environment. They have proven useful to analyse grasps, manipulation skills, and whole-body support poses. Despite…
Geometric mechanics provides valuable insights into how biological and robotic systems use changes in shape to move by mechanically interacting with their environment. In high-friction environments it provides that the entire interaction is…