Related papers: Gait design for limbless obstacle aided locomotion…

In this chapter we will highlight our experimental studies on natural human walking analysis and introduce a biologically inspired design for simple bipedal locomotion system of humanoid robots. Inspiration comes directly from human walking…

Geometric mechanics provides valuable insights into how biological and robotic systems use changes in shape to move by mechanically interacting with their environment. In high-friction environments it provides that the entire interaction is…

Geometric motion planning offers effective and interpretable gait analysis and optimization tools for locomoting systems. However, due to the curse of dimensionality in coordinate optimization, a key component of geometric motion planning,…

This paper presents a soft earthworm robot that is capable of both efficient locomotion and obstacle avoidance. The robot is designed to replicate the unique locomotion mechanisms of earthworms, which enable them to move through narrow and…

Gaits engineered for snake-like robots to rotate in-place instrumentally fill a gap in the set of locomotive gaits that have traditionally prioritized translation. This paper designs a Turn-in-Place gait and demonstrates the ability of a…

Stable bipedal walking is a key prerequisite for humanoid robots to reach their potential of being versatile helpers in our everyday environments. Bipedal walking is, however, a complex motion that requires the coordination of many degrees…

The adaptability of soft robots makes them ideal candidates to maneuver through unstructured environments. However, locomotion challenges arise due to complexities in modeling the body mechanics, actuation, and robot-environment dynamics.…

Sprawling locomotion in vertebrates, particularly salamanders, demonstrates how body undulation and spinal mobility enhance stability, maneuverability, and adaptability across complex terrains. While prior work has separately explored…

Automatically generating agile whole-body motions for legged and humanoid robots remains a fundamental challenge in robotics. While numerous trajectory optimization approaches have been proposed, there is no clear guideline on how the…

Walking animals, like stick insects, cockroaches or ants, demonstrate a fascinating range of locomotive abilities and complex behaviors. The locomotive behaviors can consist of a variety of walking patterns along with adaptation that allow…

Robots are increasingly operating in indoor environments designed for and shared with people. However, robots working safely and autonomously in uneven and unstructured environments still face great challenges. Many modern indoor…

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…

Locomotion for legged robots poses considerable challenges when confronted by obstacles and adverse environments. Footstep planners are typically only designed for one mode of locomotion, but traversing unfavorable environments may require…

Several planners have been proposed to compute robot paths that reach desired goal regions while avoiding obstacles. However, these methods fail when all pathways to the goal are blocked. In such cases, the robot must reason about how to…

Safe path and gait planning are essential for bipedal robots to navigate complex real-world environments. The prevailing approaches often plan the path and gait separately in a hierarchical fashion, potentially resulting in unsafe movements…

Legged robot locomotion on sand slopes is challenging due to the complex dynamics of granular media and how the lack of solid surfaces can hinder locomotion. A promising strategy, inspired by ghost crabs and other organisms in nature, is to…

Recently, reinforcement learning has become a promising and polular solution for robot legged locomotion. Compared to model-based control, reinforcement learning based controllers can achieve better robustness against uncertainties of…

Quadrupeds are strong candidates for navigating challenging environments because of their agile and dynamic designs. This paper presents a methodology that extends the range of exploration for quadrupedal robots by creating an end-to-end…

An autonomous robot that is able to physically guide humans through narrow and cluttered spaces could be a big boon to the visually-impaired. Most prior robotic guiding systems are based on wheeled platforms with large bases with actuated…

This study proposes a hierarchically integrated framework for safe task and motion planning (TAMP) of bipedal locomotion in a partially observable environment with dynamic obstacles and uneven terrain. The high-level task planner employs…