Related papers: On Safety Testing, Validation, and Characterizatio…
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…
Uncertainties in the real world mean that is impossible for system designers to anticipate and explicitly design for all scenarios that a robot might encounter. Thus, robots designed like this are fragile and fail outside of…
Locomotion robots with active or passive compliance can show robustness to uncertain scenarios, which can be promising for agricultural, research and environmental industries. However, state estimation for these robots is challenging due to…
Sampling-based methods for motion planning, which capture the structure of the robot's free space via (typically random) sampling, have gained popularity due to their scalability, simplicity, and for offering global guarantees, such as…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has demonstrated impressive performance in legged locomotion over various challenging environments. However, due to the sim-to-real gap and lack of explainability, unconstrained RL policies deployed in the real…
This study proposes a novel planning framework based on a model predictive control formulation that incorporates signal temporal logic (STL) specifications for task completion guarantees and robustness quantification. This marks the…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms show amazing performance in recent years, but placing RL in real-world applications such as self-driven vehicles may suffer safety problems. A self-driven vehicle moving to a target position following…
Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…
This paper proposes a method to evaluate the capability of aggressive legged robot landing under significant touchdown linear and angular velocities upon impact. Our approach builds upon the Planar Inverted Pendulum with Flywheel (PIPF)…
We present a novel framework for estimating accident-prone regions in everyday indoor scenes, aimed at improving real-time risk awareness in service robots operating in human-centric environments. As robots become integrated into daily…
This paper proposes a formal robot motion risk reasoning framework and develops a risk-aware path planner that minimizes the proposed risk. While robots locomoting in unstructured or confined environments face a variety of risk, existing…
Ensuring safe interactions in human-centric environments requires robots to understand and adhere to constraints recognized by humans as "common sense" (e.g., "moving a cup of water above a laptop is unsafe as the water may spill" or…
Unthinking execution of human instructions in robotic manipulation can lead to severe safety risks, such as poisonings, fires, and even explosions. In this paper, we present responsible robotic manipulation, which requires robots to…
Robots are increasingly used to carry out critical missions in extreme environments that are hazardous for humans. This requires a high degree of operational autonomy under uncertain conditions, and poses new challenges for assuring the…
Robots "in-the-wild" encounter and must traverse widely varying terrain, ranging from solid ground to granular materials like sand to full liquids. Numerous approaches exist, including wheeled and legged robots, each excelling in specific…
Ensuring the functional correctness and safety of autonomous vehicles is a major challenge for the automotive industry. However, exhaustive physical test drives are not feasible, as billions of driven kilometers would be required to obtain…
Robot accidents are inevitable. Although rare, they have been happening since assembly-line robots were first introduced in the 1960s. But a new generation of social robots are now becoming commonplace. Often with sophisticated embedded…
Legged robots have enormous potential in their range of capabilities, from navigating unstructured terrains to high-speed running. However, designing robust controllers for highly agile dynamic motions remains a substantial challenge for…
Quadruped robots are proliferating in industrial environments where they carry sensor payloads and serve as autonomous inspection platforms. Despite the advantages of legged robots over their wheeled counterparts on rough and uneven…
Humanoid robots deployed in industrial environments are required to perform load-carrying transportation tasks that tightly couple locomotion and manipulation. However, achieving stable and robust locomotion under varying payloads and…