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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,…

A flying trapeze act can be a challenging task for a robotics system since some act requires the performer to catch another trapeze or catcher at the end after being airborne. The objective of this paper is to design and validate a motion…

Amphibious legged robots inspired by salamanders are promising in applications in complex amphibious environments. However, despite the significant success of training controllers that achieve diverse locomotion behaviors in conventional…

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…

Reinforcement learning (RL) for bipedal locomotion has recently demonstrated robust gaits over moderate terrains using only proprioceptive sensing. However, such blind controllers will fail in environments where robots must anticipate and…

Quadrupedal animals can perform agile and playful tasks while interacting with real-world objects. For instance, a trained dog can track and catch a flying frisbee before it touches the ground, while a cat left alone at home may leap to…

Precise trajectory tracking for legged robots can be challenging due to their high degrees of freedom, unmodeled nonlinear dynamics, or random disturbances from the environment. A commonly adopted solution to overcome these challenges is to…

Reinforcement learning method is extremely competitive in gait generation techniques for quadrupedal robot, which is mainly due to the fact that stochastic exploration in reinforcement training is beneficial to achieve an autonomous gait.…

Generating dynamic jumping motions on legged robots remains a challenging control problem as the full flight phase and large landing impact are expected. Compared to quadrupedal robots or other multi-legged robots, bipedal robots place…

In this paper, we present a general learning framework for controlling a quadruped robot that can mimic the behavior of real animals and traverse challenging terrains. Our method consists of two steps: an imitation learning step to learn…

It is doubtful that animals have perfect inverse models of their limbs (e.g., what muscle contraction must be applied to every joint to reach a particular location in space). However, in robot control, moving an arm's end-effector to a…

Electric quadruped robots used in outdoor exploration are susceptible to leg-related electrical or mechanical failures. Unexpected joint power loss and joint locking can immediately pose a falling threat. Typically, controllers lack the…

In this paper, we propose a novel approach on controlling wheel-legged quadrupedal robots using pose optimization and force control via quadratic programming (QP). Our method allows the robot to leverage the whole-body motion and the wheel…

Step adjustment can improve the gait robustness of biped robots, however the adaptation of step timing is often neglected as it gives rise to non-convex problems when optimized over several footsteps. In this paper, we argue that it is not…

We generalize the well-studied problem of gait learning in modular robots in two dimensions. Firstly, we address locomotion in a given target direction that goes beyond learning a typical undirected gait. Secondly, rather than studying one…

Operations in hazardous environments put humans, animals, and machines at high risk for physically damaging consequences. In contrast to humans and animals, quadruped robots cannot naturally identify and adjust their locomotion to a…

Real-world physics can only be analytically modeled with a certain level of precision for modern intricate robotic systems. As a result, tracking aggressive trajectories accurately could be challenging due to the existence of residual…

The design of gaits for robot locomotion can be a daunting process which requires significant expert knowledge and engineering. This process is even more challenging for robots that do not have an accurate physical model, such as compliant…

Achieving controlled jumping behaviour for a quadruped robot is a challenging task, especially when introducing passive compliance in mechanical design. This study addresses this challenge via imitation-based deep reinforcement learning…

When a gait of a bipedal robot is developed using deep reinforcement learning, reference trajectories may or may not be used. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, and the choice of method is up to the control developer. This…