Related papers: Mechanical principles of dynamic terrestrial self-…
The centimeter-scale cyborg insects have a potential advantage for application in narrow environments where humans cannot operate. To realize such tasks, researchers have developed a small printed-circuit-board (PCB) which an insect can…
Humans possess delicate dynamic balance mechanisms that enable them to maintain stability across diverse terrains and under extreme conditions. However, despite significant advances recently, existing locomotion algorithms for humanoid…
Extrinsic manipulation, a technique that enables robots to leverage extrinsic resources for object manipulation, presents practical yet challenging scenarios. Particularly in the context of extrinsic manipulation on a supporting plane,…
Exploring planetary bodies with lower gravity, such as the moon and Mars, allows legged robots to utilize jumping as an efficient form of locomotion thus giving them a valuable advantage over traditional rovers for exploration. Motivated by…
Insect-scale micro-aerial vehicles, especially lightweight, flapping-wing robots, are becoming increasingly important for safe motion sensing in spatially constrained environments such as living spaces. However, yaw control using flapping…
While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and…
Fully autonomous mobile robots have a multitude of potential applications, but guaranteeing robust navigation performance remains an open research problem. For many tasks such as repeated infrastructure inspection, item delivery, or…
Birds, bats and many insects can tuck their wings against their bodies at rest and deploy them to power flight. Whereas birds and bats use well-developed pectoral and wing muscles and tendons, how insects control these movements remains…
In this work we present Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) training of directional locomotion for low-cost quadrupedal robots in the real world. In particular, we exploit randomization of heading that the robot must follow to foster…
Birds employ rapid pitch-up motions for different purposes: perching birds use this motion to decelerate and come to a complete stop while hunting birds, like bald eagles, employ it to catch prey and swiftly fly away. Motivated by these…
Symmetry is a central organizing principle in natural systems, yet its use as a unifying design strategy in robotics has largely remained limited to geometric form. We show that symmetry can instead be leveraged at the level of dynamic…
To reproduce natural standing-up motion, recent studies have emphasized the importance of coordination between the assisting robot and the human. However, many non-wearable assistive devices have struggled to replicate natural motion…
Snake robots, comprised of sequentially connected joint actuators, have recently gained increasing attention in the industrial field, like life detection in narrow space. Such robots can navigate through the complex environment via the…
Morphing aerial robots have the potential to transform autonomous flight, enabling navigation through cluttered environments, perching, and seamless transitions between aerial and terrestrial locomotion. Yet mid-flight reconfiguration…
A major challenge to understanding locomotion in complex 3-D terrain with large obstacles is to create tools for controlled, systematic lab experiments. Existing terrain arenas only allow observations at small spatiotemporal scales (~10…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
Small-scale robots hold great potential for targeted cargo delivery in minimally-inv asive medicine. However, current robots often face challenges to locomote efficiently on slip pery biological tissue surfaces, especially when loaded with…
This paper studies the design, control, and learning of a novel robotic limb that produces overconstrained locomotion by employing the Bennett linkage for motion generation, capable of parametric reconfiguration between a reptile- and…
Soft robots offer more flexibility, compliance, and adaptability than traditional rigid robots. They are also typically lighter and cheaper to manufacture. However, their use in real-world applications is limited due to modeling challenges…
Micro-robots for, e.g., biomedical applications, need to be equipped with motility strategies that enable them to navigate through complex environments. Inspired by biological microorganisms we recreate motility patterns such as…