Related papers: Learning-based Design and Control for Quadrupedal …
Legged robots are becoming increasingly agile in exhibiting dynamic behaviors such as running and jumping. Usually, such behaviors are either optimized and engineered offline (i.e. the behavior is designed for before it is needed), either…
Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has become a promising approach to developing controllers for quadrupedal robots. Conventionally, an RL design for locomotion follows a position-based paradigm, wherein an RL policy outputs target joint positions…
Climbing, crouching, bridging gaps, and walking up stairs are just a few of the advantages that quadruped robots have over wheeled robots, making them more suitable for navigating rough and unstructured terrain. However, executing such…
Athletic robots demand a whole-body actuation system design that utilizes motors up to the boundaries of their performance. However, creating such robots poses challenges of integrating design principles and reasoning of practical design…
It is often overlooked by roboticists when designing locomotion controllers for their legged machines, that energy consumption plays an important role in selecting the best gaits for locomotion at high speeds or over long distances. The…
This paper presents a control framework that combines model-based optimal control and reinforcement learning (RL) to achieve versatile and robust legged locomotion. Our approach enhances the RL training process by incorporating on-demand…
Legged robot research is presently focused on bipedal or quadrupedal robots, despite capabilities to build robots with many more legs to potentially improve locomotion performance. This imbalance is not necessarily due to hardware…
In this paper, we present an efficient Dynamic Programing framework for optimal planning and control of legged robots. First we formulate this problem as an optimal control problem for switched systems. Then we propose a multi--level…
Faced with complex and unstructured construction environments, wheeled and tracked robots exhibit significant limitations in terrain adaptability and flexibility, making it difficult to meet the requirements of autonomous operation.…
Design of robotic systems that safely and efficiently operate in uncertain operational conditions, such as rehabilitation and physical assistance robots, remains an important challenge in the field. Current methods for the design of energy…
This study explores the dynamics of asymmetrical bounding gaits in quadrupedal robots, focusing on the integration of torso pitching and hip motion to enhance speed and stability. Traditional control strategies often enforce a fixed…
Model-based control usually relies on an accurate model, which is often obtained from CAD and actuator models. The more accurate the model the better the control performance. However, in bipedal robots that demonstrate high agility actions,…
Spring-based actuators in legged locomotion provide energy-efficiency and improved performance, but increase the difficulty of controller design. While previous work has focused on extensive modeling and simulation to find optimal…
This paper presents a novel approach that combines the advantages of both model-based and learning-based frameworks to achieve robust locomotion. The residual modules are integrated with each corresponding part of the model-based framework,…
Performing highly agile dynamic motions, such as jumping or running on uneven stepping stones has remained a challenging problem in legged robot locomotion. This paper presents a framework that combines trajectory optimization and model…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has seen many recent successes for quadruped robot control. The imitation of reference motions provides a simple and powerful prior for guiding solutions towards desired solutions without the need for meticulous…
Series elastic robots are best able to follow trajectories which obey the limitations of their actuators, since they cannot instantly change their joint forces. In fact, the performance of series elastic actuators can surpass that of ideal…
While quadruped robots usually have good stability and load capacity, bipedal robots offer a higher level of flexibility / adaptability to different tasks and environments. A multi-modal legged robot can take the best of both worlds. In…
To overcome the obstructions imposed by high-dimensional bipedal models, we embed a stable walking motion in an attractive low-dimensional surface of the system's state space. The process begins with trajectory optimization to design an…