Related papers: Versatile modular neural locomotion control with f…
Legged robots must adapt their gait to navigate unpredictable environments, a challenge that animals master with ease. However, most deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches to quadruped locomotion rely on a fixed gait, limiting…
How can a robot navigate successfully in rich and diverse environments, indoors or outdoors, along office corridors or trails on the grassland, on the flat ground or the staircase? To this end, this work aims to address three challenges:…
Recent advances in legged locomotion learning are still dominated by the utilization of geometric representations of the environment, limiting the robot's capability to respond to higher-level semantics such as human instructions. To…
Jumping is essential for legged robots to traverse through difficult terrains. In this work, we propose a hierarchical framework that combines optimal control and reinforcement learning to learn continuous jumping motions for quadrupedal…
Neuromodulation is central to the adaptation and robustness of animal nervous systems. This paper explores the classical paradigm of indirect adaptive control to design neuromodulatory controllers in conductance-based neuronal models. The…
Enabling robots to autonomously perform hybrid motions in diverse environments can be beneficial for long-horizon tasks such as material handling, household chores, and work assistance. This requires extensive exploitation of intrinsic…
Soft materials have many important roles in animal locomotion and object manipulation. In robotic applications soft materials can store and release energy, absorb impacts, increase compliance and increase the range of possible shape…
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…
Learning a locomotion controller for a musculoskeletal system is challenging due to over-actuation and high-dimensional action space. While many reinforcement learning methods attempt to address this issue, they often struggle to learn…
Legged robots, particularly quadrupeds, offer promising navigation capabilities, especially in scenarios requiring traversal over diverse terrains and obstacle avoidance. This paper addresses the challenge of enabling legged robots to…
Dung beetles impressively coordinate their six legs simultaneously to effectively roll large dung balls. They are also capable of rolling dung balls varying in the weight on different terrains. The mechanisms underlying how their motor…
In this paper, we propose a novel framework for synthesizing a single multimodal control policy capable of generating diverse behaviors (or modes) and emergent inherent transition maneuvers for bipedal locomotion. In our method, we first…
Legged robots traversing in confined environments could find their only path is blocked by obstacles. In circumstances where the obstacles are movable, a multilegged robot can manipulate the obstacles using its legs to allow it to continue…
A large-scale mobile robot (LSMR) is a high-order multibody system that often operates on loose, unconsolidated terrain, which reduces traction. This paper presents a comprehensive navigation and control framework for an LSMR that ensures…
In this paper, we present a new locomotion control method for soft robot snakes. Inspired by biological snakes, our control architecture is composed of two key modules: A deep reinforcement learning (RL) module for achieving adaptive…
We focus on the problem of learning a single motor module that can flexibly express a range of behaviors for the control of high-dimensional physically simulated humanoids. To do this, we propose a motor architecture that has the general…
Legged robots are able to navigate complex terrains by continuously interacting with the environment through careful selection of contact sequences and timings. However, the combinatorial nature behind contact planning hinders the…
Agile maneuvers such as sprinting and high-speed turning in the wild are challenging for legged robots. We present an end-to-end learned controller that achieves record agility for the MIT Mini Cheetah, sustaining speeds up to 3.9 m/s. This…
The deformable and continuum nature of soft robots promises versatility and adaptability. However, control of modular, multi-limbed soft robots for terrestrial locomotion is challenging due to the complex robot structure, actuator mechanics…
Learning dexterous locomotion policy for legged robots is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to handle diverse terrains and resemble intelligent behaviors. However, joint manipulation of moving objects and locomotion with…