Related papers: HOPPY: An Open-source Kit for Education with Dynam…
Learning controllers that reproduce legged locomotion in nature has been a long-time goal in robotics and computer graphics. While yielding promising results, recent approaches are not yet flexible enough to be applicable to legged systems…
Soft robots, while highly adaptable to diverse environments through various actuation methods, still face significant performance boundary due to the inherent properties of materials. These limitations manifest in the challenge of…
Achieving stable hopping has been a hallmark challenge in the field of dynamic legged locomotion. Controlled hopping is notably difficult due to extended periods of underactuation combined with very short ground phases wherein ground…
Generalizable humanoid loco-manipulation poses significant challenges, requiring coordinated whole-body control and precise, contact-rich object manipulation. To address this, this paper introduces HOMIE, a semi-autonomous teleoperation…
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…
We propose a mechanically simple and cheap design for a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness. Such characteristics are necessary for animals for running, jumping, throwing, and manipulation, yet in robots, variable stiffness…
Recent developments of low cost off-the-shelf programmable components, their modularity, and also rapid prototyping made educational robotics flourish, as it is accessible in most schools today. They allow to illustrate and embody…
We present a small autonomous vehicle, with the purpose of aiding teachers and researchers to easily deploy different approaches to guidance, control and positioning systems, without the hassle to develop the entire modules required for…
In recent years, there has been a significant effort dedicated to developing efficient, robust, and general human-to-robot handover systems. However, the area of flexible handover in the context of complex and continuous objects' motion…
A standard motion control with feedback of the output displacement cannot handle unforeseen contact with environment without penetrating into the soft, i.e. viscoelastic, materials or even damaging the fragile materials. Robotics and…
Dexterous object manipulation remains an open problem in robotics, despite the rapid progress in machine learning during the past decade. We argue that a hindrance is the high cost of experimentation on real systems, in terms of both time…
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…
The Michigan Robotics MBot is a low-cost mobile robot platform that has been used to train over 1,400 students in autonomous navigation since 2014 at the University of Michigan and our collaborating colleges. The MBot platform was designed…
Locomotive robots that do not rely on electronics and/or electromagnetic components will open up new perspectives and applications for robotics. However, these robots usually involve complicated and tedious fabrication processes, limiting…
Soft robots have a myriad of potentials because of their intrinsically compliant bodies, enabling safe interactions with humans and adaptability to unpredictable environments. However, most of them have limited actuation speeds, require…
Pneumatically operated soft growing robots that extend via tip eversion are well-suited for navigation in confined spaces. Adding the ability to interact with the environment using sensors and tools attached to the robot tip would greatly…
The problem of a rigid disk rolling down a ramp is a classic problem given to students in introductory mechanics courses. In contrast, systematic studies on the rolling behavior of an ellipse have only recently emerged. Unlike a rolling…
Despite many accomplishments by legged robot designers, state-of-the-art bipedal robots are prone to falling over, cannot negotiate extremely rough terrains and cannot directly regulate unilateral contact forces. Our objective is to…
In this work, a control scheme for human-robot collaborative object transportation is proposed, considering a quadruped robot equipped with the MIGHTY suction cup that serves both as a gripper for holding the object and a force/torque…
Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…