Related papers: Reinforcement Learning of CPG-regulated Locomotion…

For the deployment of legged robots in real-world environments, it is essential to develop robust locomotion control methods for challenging terrains that may exhibit unexpected deformability and irregularity. In this paper, we explore the…

Mastering robotic manipulation skills through reinforcement learning (RL) typically requires the design of shaped reward functions. Recent developments in this area have demonstrated that using sparse rewards, i.e. rewarding the agent only…

Classical snake robot control leverages mimicking snake-like gaits tuned for specific environments. However, to operate adaptively in unstructured environments, gait generation must be dynamically scheduled. In this work, we present a…

Reinforcement learning (RL) has become the de facto method for achieving locomotion on humanoid robots in practice, yet stability analysis of the corresponding control policies is lacking. Recent work has attempted to merge control…

We propose a control framework that integrates model-based bipedal locomotion with residual reinforcement learning (RL) to achieve robust and adaptive walking in the presence of real-world uncertainties. Our approach leverages a model-based…

Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…

Traditional dynamic models of continuum robots are in general computationally expensive and not suitable for real-time control. Recent approaches using learning-based methods to approximate the dynamic model of continuum robots for control…

Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) is inherently a reactive method, operating under the assumption that it starts with no prior knowledge of the system and entirely depends on trial-and-error for learning. This approach faces several…

Bipedal locomotion skills are challenging to develop. Control strategies often use local linearization of the dynamics in conjunction with reduced-order abstractions to yield tractable solutions. In these model-based control strategies, the…

Humanoid robots have the potential to mimic human motions with high visual fidelity, yet translating these motions into practical, physical execution remains a significant challenge. Existing techniques in the graphics community often…

Animals possess a remarkable ability to navigate challenging terrains, achieved through the interplay of various pathways between the brain, central pattern generators (CPGs) in the spinal cord, and musculoskeletal system. Traditional…

Reproducing the diverse and agile locomotion skills of animals has been a longstanding challenge in robotics. While manually-designed controllers have been able to emulate many complex behaviors, building such controllers involves a…

Robot co-design, where the morphology of a robot is optimized jointly with a learned policy to solve a specific task, is an emerging area of research. It holds particular promise for soft robots, which are amenable to novel manufacturing…

Deep reinforcement learning (RL) uses model-free techniques to optimize task-specific control policies. Despite having emerged as a promising approach for complex problems, RL is still hard to use reliably for real-world applications. Apart…

An important function of autonomous microrobots is the ability to perform robust movement over terrain. This paper explores an edge ML approach to microrobot locomotion, allowing for on-device, lower latency control under compute, memory,…

We present a unified model-based and data-driven approach for quadrupedal planning and control to achieve dynamic locomotion over uneven terrain. We utilize on-board proprioceptive and exteroceptive feedback to map sensory information and…

Rectilinear crawling locomotion is a primitive and common mode of locomotion in slender, soft-bodied animals. It requires coordinated contractions that propagate along a body that interacts frictionally with its environment. We propose a…

Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…

This paper addresses the challenge of terrain-adaptive dynamic locomotion in humanoid robots, a problem traditionally tackled by optimization-based methods or reinforcement learning (RL). Optimization-based methods, such as model-predictive…

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…