Related papers: Locomotor transitions in the potential energy land…

Effective locomotion in nature happens by transitioning across multiple modes (e.g., walk, run, climb). Despite this, far more mechanistic understanding of terrestrial locomotion has been on how to generate and stabilize around…

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…

Robotic spacecraft have helped expand our reach for many planetary exploration missions. Most ground mobile planetary exploration robots use wheeled or modified wheeled platforms. Although extraordinarily successful at completing intended…

As mobile robots become useful performing everyday tasks in complex real-world environments, they must be able to traverse a range of difficult terrain types such as stairs, stepping stones, gaps, jumps and narrow passages. This work…

Most locomotion methods for humanoid robots focus on leg-based gaits, yet natural bipeds frequently rely on hands, knees, and elbows to establish additional contacts for stability and support in complex environments. This paper introduces…

Robots still struggle to dynamically traverse complex 3-D terrain with many large obstacles, an ability required for many critical applications. Body-obstacle interaction is often inevitable and induces perturbation and uncertainty in…

Despite the progress in legged robotic locomotion, autonomous navigation in unknown environments remains an open problem. Ideally, the navigation system utilizes the full potential of the robots' locomotion capabilities while operating…

This paper addresses the challenge of terrain-adaptive dynamic locomotion in humanoid robots, a problem traditionally tackled by optimization-based methods or reinforcement learning (RL). Optimization-based methods, such as model-predictive…

The long-standing, dominant approach to robotic obstacle negotiation relies on mapping environmental geometry to avoid obstacles. However, this approach does not allow for traversal of cluttered obstacles, hindering applications such as…

Small animals and robots must often rapidly traverse large bump-like obstacles when moving through complex 3-D terrains, during which, in addition to leg-ground contact, their body inevitably comes into physical contact with the obstacles.…

It is well known that animals can use neural and sensory feedback via vision, tactile sensing, and echolocation to negotiate obstacles. Similarly, most robots use deliberate or reactive planning to avoid obstacles, which relies on prior…

Identifying the physical properties of the surrounding environment is essential for robotic locomotion and navigation to deal with non-geometric hazards, such as slippery and deformable terrains. It would be of great benefit for robots to…

The functional demands of robotic systems often require completing various tasks or behaviors under the effect of disturbances or uncertain environments. Of increasing interest is the autonomy for dynamic robots, such as multirotors, motor…

This work developed a learning framework for perceptive legged locomotion that combines visual feedback, proprioceptive information, and active gait regulation of foot-ground contacts. The perception requires only one forward-facing camera…

Legged locomotion is commonly studied and expressed as a discrete set of gait patterns, like walk, trot, gallop, which are usually treated as given and pre-programmed in legged robots for efficient locomotion at different speeds. However,…

Walking animals, like stick insects, cockroaches or ants, demonstrate a fascinating range of locomotive abilities and complex behaviors. The locomotive behaviors can consist of a variety of walking patterns along with adaptation that allow…

Hybrid track/wheel-legged robots combine the advantages of wheel-based and leg-based locomotion, granting adaptability across varied terrains through efficient transitions between rolling and walking modes. However, automating these…

The theories of aero- and hydrodynamics predict animal movement and device design in air and water through the computation of lift, drag, and thrust forces. Although models of terrestrial legged locomotion have focused on interactions with…

To traverse complex natural terrain, animals often transition between locomotor modes. It is well known that locomotor transitions can be induced by switching in neural control circuits or be driven by a need to minimize metabolic energetic…

Locomotion has seen dramatic progress for walking or running across challenging terrains. However, robotic quadrupeds are still far behind their biological counterparts, such as dogs, which display a variety of agile skills and can use the…