Related papers: Fast and Efficient Locomotion via Learned Gait Tra…

For humans, fast, efficient walking over flat ground represents the vast majority of locomotion that an individual experiences on a daily basis, and for an effective, real-world humanoid robot the same will likely be the case. In this work,…

Learning locomotion skills is a challenging problem. To generate realistic and smooth locomotion, existing methods use motion capture, finite state machines or morphology-specific knowledge to guide the motion generation algorithms. Deep…

Quadrupedal locomotion plays a critical role in enabling agile, versatile movement across complex terrains. Understanding and estimating the underlying physical dynamics are essential for achieving efficient and stable quadrupedal…

Nature suggests that exploiting the elasticities and natural dynamics of robotic systems could increase their locomotion efficiency. Prior work on elastic snake robots supports this hypothesis, but has not fully exploited the nonlinear…

Animals such as rabbits and birds can instantly generate locomotion behavior in reaction to a dynamic, approaching object, such as a person or a rock, despite having possibly never seen the object before and having limited perception of the…

Despite contending with constraints imposed by the environment, morphology, and physiology, animals move well by physically interactingwith the environment to use and transition between modes such as running, climbing, and self-righting. By…

Energy efficiency and motion smoothness are essential in trajectory planning for high-degree-of-freedom robots to ensure optimal performance and reduce mechanical wear. This paper presents a novel framework integrating sinusoidal trajectory…

This paper presents a data-driven strategy to streamline the deployment of model-based controllers in legged robotic hardware platforms. Our approach leverages a model-free safe learning algorithm to automate the tuning of control gains,…

Although bipedal locomotion provides the ability to traverse unstructured environments, it requires careful planning and control to safely walk across without falling. This poses an integrated challenge for the robot to perceive, plan, and…

In the context of legged robots, adaptive behavior involves adaptive balancing and adaptive swing foot reflection. While adaptive balancing counteracts perturbations to the robot, adaptive swing foot reflection helps the robot to navigate…

Urban search and rescue missions require rapid first response to minimize loss of life and damage. Often, such efforts are assisted by humanitarian robots which need to handle dynamic operational conditions such as uneven and rough…

In nature, legged animals have developed the ability to adapt to challenging terrains through perception, allowing them to plan safe body and foot trajectories in advance, which leads to safe and energy-efficient locomotion. Inspired by…

Quadrupedal wheeled-legged robots combine the advantages of legged and wheeled locomotion to achieve superior mobility, but executing dynamic jumps remains a significant challenge due to the additional degrees of freedom introduced by…

Some of the most challenging environments on our planet are accessible to quadrupedal animals but remain out of reach for autonomous machines. Legged locomotion can dramatically expand the operational domains of robotics. However,…

The integration of Supernumerary Limbs (SLs) on humanoid robots poses a significant stability challenge due to the dynamic perturbations they introduce. This thesis addresses this issue by designing a novel hierarchical control architecture…

This work presents an extended framework for learning-based bipedal locomotion that incorporates a heuristic step-planning strategy guided by desired torso velocity tracking. The framework enables precise interaction between a humanoid…

Humanoid robots that can autonomously operate in diverse environments have the potential to help address labour shortages in factories, assist elderly at homes, and colonize new planets. While classical controllers for humanoid robots have…

The ability to walk in new scenarios is a key milestone on the path toward real-world applications of legged robots. In this work, we introduce Meta Strategy Optimization, a meta-learning algorithm for training policies with latent variable…

Legged robots must exhibit robust and agile locomotion across diverse, unstructured terrains, a challenge exacerbated under blind locomotion settings where terrain information is unavailable. This work introduces a hierarchical…

Flexible manufacturing processes demand robots to easily adapt to changes in the environment and interact with humans. In such dynamic scenarios, robotic tasks may be programmed through learning-from-demonstration approaches, where a…