Related papers: Friction modulation in limbless, three-dimensional…
Developing natural and diverse locomotion controllers for quadruped robots that can adapt to complex terrains while preserving motion style remains a significant challenge. Existing imitation-based methods face a fundamental optimization…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
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…
Motion prediction is a classic problem in computer vision, which aims at forecasting future motion given the observed pose sequence. Various deep learning models have been proposed, achieving state-of-the-art performance on motion…
Structure-from-Motion (SfM) aims to recover 3D scene structures and camera poses based on the correspondences between input images, and thus the ambiguity caused by duplicate structures (i.e., different structures with strong visual…
The simultaneous localization and mapping community has introduced a growing number of systems adapted for multi-session operations where the operational environment features low-dynamic changes that impact mapping, such as surface wear,…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…
Recent research on mobile robots has focused on increasing their adaptability to unpredictable and unstructured environments using soft materials and structures. However, the determination of key design parameters and control over these…
When walking on loose terrains, possibly covered with vegetation, the ground and grass should deform, but the character's gait should also change accordingly. We propose a method for modeling such two-ways interactions in real-time. We…
Physics-based motion imitation is central to humanoid control, yet current evaluation metrics (e.g., joint position error) only measure how well a policy imitates but not how difficult the motion itself is. This conflates policy performance…
The effect of sequence heterogeneity on polynucleotide translocation across a pore and on simple models of molecular motors such as helicases, DNA polymerase/exonuclease and RNA polymerase is studied in detail. Pore translocation of RNA or…
Patterns forming spontaneously in extended, three-dimensional, dissipative systems are likely to excite several homogeneous soft modes ($\approx$ hydrodynamic modes) of the underlying physical system, much more than quasi one- and…
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…
Biological locomotion in nature is often achieved by the interaction between a flexible body and its surrounding medium. The interaction of a flexible body with granular media is less understood compared with viscous fluids partially due to…
Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to exhibit unique mechanical properties, including tunable auxetic behavior as well as multi-stability, which arise from the geometry and configuration of the constituent building blocks.…
We propose a simple mechanical model of locomotion induced by internal force and friction. We first construct a system of two elements as an analog of the bipedal motion. The internal force does not induce a directional motion by itself…
Tribological phenomena are governed by combined effects of material properties, topology and surface-chemistry. We study the interplay of multiscale surface structures with molecular-scale interactions towards interpreting static frictional…
Granular materials such as sand, powders, and food grains are ubiquitous in civil engineering, geoscience, agriculture, and medicine. While the influence of friction between the grains on the static structure of these systems is well…
Exploring and navigating in extreme environments, such as caves, oceans, and planetary bodies, are often too hazardous for humans, and as such, robots are possible surrogates. These robots are met with significant locomotion challenges that…