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Using joint actuators to drive the skeletal movements is a common practice in character animation, but the resultant torque patterns are often unnatural or infeasible for real humans to achieve. On the other hand, physiologically-based…

Differential drive robots are widely used in various scenarios thanks to their straightforward principle, from household service robots to disaster response field robots. There are several types of driving mechanisms for real-world…

Autonomous terrain traversal of articulated tracked robots can reduce operator cognitive load to enhance task efficiency and facilitate extensive deployment. We present a novel hybrid trajectory optimization method aimed at generating…

While its biological significance is well-documented, its application in soft robotics, particularly for the transport of fragile and irregularly shaped objects, remains underexplored. This study presents a modular soft robotic actuator…

This work presents a computationally lightweight motion planner for over-actuated platforms. For this purpose, a general state-space model for mobile platforms with several kinematic chains is defined, which considers non-linearities and…

Dexterous in-hand manipulation is a unique and valuable human skill requiring sophisticated sensorimotor interaction with the environment while respecting stability constraints. Satisfying these constraints with generated motions is…

Force modulation of robotic manipulators has been extensively studied for several decades. However, it is not yet commonly used in safety-critical applications due to a lack of accurate interaction contact modeling and weak performance…

Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…

In this work we present a trajectory Optimization framework for whole-body motion planning through contacts. We demonstrate how the proposed approach can be applied to automatically discover different gaits and dynamic motions on a…

Training agents to autonomously learn how to use anthropomorphic robotic hands has the potential to lead to systems capable of performing a multitude of complex manipulation tasks in unstructured and uncertain environments. In this work, we…

As the robotics market rapidly evolves, energy consumption has become a critical issue, particularly restricting the application of construction robots. To tackle this challenge, our study innovatively draws inspiration from the mechanics…

Motion planning for multi-jointed robots is challenging. Due to the inherent complexity of the problem, most existing works decompose motion planning as easier subproblems. However, because of the inconsistent performance metrics, only…

We present an optimization-based motion planning algorithm to compute a smooth, collision-free trajectory for a manipulator used to transfer a liquid from a source to a target container. We take into account fluid dynamics constraints as…

Performing highly agile acrobatic motions with a long flight phase requires perfect timing, high accuracy, and coordination of the full-body motion. To address these challenges, we present a novel approach on timings and trajectory…

Humanoid robots are machines built with an anthropomorphic shape. Despite decades of research into the subject, it is still challenging to tackle the robot locomotion problem from an algorithmic point of view. For example, these machines…

Recent studies have demonstrated the immense potential of exploiting muscle actuator morphology for natural and robust movement -- in simulation. A validation on real robotic hardware is yet missing. In this study, we emulate muscle…

We automate soft robotic hand design iteration by co-optimizing design and control policy for dexterous manipulation skills in simulation. Our design iteration pipeline combines genetic algorithms and policy transfer to learn control…

We present an efficient spacetime optimization method to automatically generate animations for a general volumetric, elastically deformable body. Our approach can model the interactions between the body and the environment and automatically…

This paper presents a search-based partial motion planner to generate dynamically feasible trajectories for car-like robots in highly dynamic environments. The planner searches for smooth, safe, and near-time-optimal trajectories by…

To improve safety and energy efficiency, autonomous vehicles are expected to drive smoothly in most situations, while maintaining their velocity below a predetermined speed limit. However, some scenarios such as low road adherence or…