Related papers: Leveraging Evolutionary Algorithms for Feasible He…
For humanoid robots to live up to their potential utility, they must be able to robustly recover from instabilities. In this work, we propose a number of balance enhancements to enable the robot to both achieve specific, desired footholds…
Humanoid robots are made to resemble humans but their locomotion abilities are far from ours in terms of agility and versatility. When humans walk on complex terrains, or face external disturbances, they combine a set of strategies,…
Legged robots are promising candidates for exploring challenging areas on low-gravity bodies such as the Moon, Mars, or asteroids, thanks to their advanced mobility on unstructured terrain. However, as planetary robots' power and thermal…
Building trajectories for biped robot walking is a complex task considering all degrees of freedom (DOFs) commonly bound within the mechanical structure. A typical problem for such robots is the instability produced by violent transitions…
In trying to build humanoid robots that perform useful tasks in a world built for humans, we address the problem of autonomous locomotion. Humanoid robot planning and control algorithms for walking over rough terrain are becoming…
Recent works showed that simple success-based rules for self-adjusting parameters in evolutionary algorithms (EAs) can match or outperform the best fixed parameters on discrete problems. Non-elitism in a (1,$\lambda$) EA combined with a…
Legged robots have significant potential to operate in highly unstructured environments. The design of locomotion control is, however, still challenging. Currently, controllers must be either manually designed for specific robots and tasks,…
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…
Real-time constraint satisfaction for robots can be quite challenging due to the high computational complexity that arises when accounting for the system dynamics and environmental interactions, often requiring simplification in modelling…
Quadruped animals are capable of exhibiting a diverse range of locomotion gaits. While progress has been made in demonstrating such gaits on robots, current methods rely on motion priors, dynamics models, or other forms of extensive manual…
Terrain geometry is, in general, non-smooth, non-linear, non-convex, and, if perceived through a robot-centric visual unit, appears partially occluded and noisy. This work presents the complete control pipeline capable of handling the…
Bipedal walking is one of the most important hallmarks of human that robots have been trying to mimic for many decades. Although previous control methodologies have achieved robot walking on some terrains, there is a need for a framework…
This paper presents a method for achieving high-speed running of a quadruped robot by considering the actuator torque-speed operating region in reinforcement learning. The physical properties and constraints of the actuator are included in…
Recent progress in legged locomotion has allowed highly dynamic and parkour-like behaviors for robots, similar to their biological counterparts. Yet, these methods mostly rely on egocentric (first-person) perception, limiting their…
Legged robots that can operate autonomously in remote and hazardous environments will greatly increase opportunities for exploration into under-explored areas. Exteroceptive perception is crucial for fast and energy-efficient locomotion:…
Legged robot locomotion is hindered by a mismatch between applications where legs can outperform wheels or treads, most of which feature deformable substrates, and existing tools for planning and control, most of which assume flat, rigid…
Quadruped locomotion is rapidly maturing to a degree where robots now routinely traverse a variety of unstructured terrains. However, while gaits can be varied typically by selecting from a range of pre-computed styles, current planners are…
Walking is a common bipedal and quadrupedal gait and is often associated with terrestrial and aquatic organisms. Inspired by recent evidence of the neural underpinnings of primitive aquatic walking in the little skate Leucoraja erinacea, we…
Navigating cluttered environments is a challenging task for any mobile system. Existing approaches for ground-based mobile systems primarily focus on small wheeled robots, which face minimal constraints with overhanging obstacles and cannot…
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…