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As legged robots are deployed in industrial and autonomous construction tasks requiring collaborative manipulation, they must handle object manipulation while maintaining stable locomotion. The challenge intensifies in real-world…
Legged robots have shown remarkable advantages in navigating uneven terrain. However, realizing effective locomotion and manipulation tasks on quadruped robots is still challenging. In addition, object and terrain parameters are generally…
Modern quadrupeds are skillful in traversing or even sprinting on uneven terrains in a remote uncontrolled environment. However, survival in the wild requires not only maneuverability, but also the ability to handle potential critical…
Soft pneumatic legged robots show promise in their ability to traverse a range of different types of terrain, including natural unstructured terrain met in applications like precision agriculture. They can adapt their body morphology to the…
Snake robots have the potential to maneuver through tightly packed and complex environments. One challenge in enabling them to do so is the complexity in determining how to coordinate their many degrees-of-freedom to create purposeful…
Locomotion on granular slopes such as sand dunes remains a fundamental challenge for legged robots due to reduced shear strength and gravity-induced anisotropic yielding of granular media. Using a hexapedal robot on a tiltable granular bed,…
Legged robots are physically capable of traversing a wide range of challenging environments, but designing controllers that are sufficiently robust to handle this diversity has been a long-standing challenge in robotics. Reinforcement…
Continuous robot operation in extreme scenarios such as underground mines or sewers is difficult because exteroceptive sensors may fail due to fog, darkness, dirt or malfunction. So as to enable autonomous navigation in these kinds of…
Learning multiple gaits is non-trivial for legged robots, especially when encountering different terrains and velocity commands. In this work, we present an end-to-end training framework for learning multiple gaits for quadruped robots,…
Quadrupedal mobile robots can traverse a wider range of terrain types than their wheeled counterparts but do not perform the same on all terrain types. These robots are prone to undesirable behaviours like sinking and slipping on…
Legged robots can pass through complex field environments by selecting gaits and discrete footholds carefully. Traditional methods plan gait and foothold separately and treat them as the single-step optimal process. However, such processing…
Despite major advancements in control design that are robust to unplanned disturbances, bipedal robots are still susceptible to falling over and struggle to negotiate rough terrains. By utilizing thrusters in our bipedal robot, we can…
Autonomous navigation in extreme mountainous terrains poses challenges due to the presence of mobility-stressing elements and undulating surfaces, making it particularly difficult compared to conventional off-road driving scenarios. In such…
We present a footstep planning policy for quadrupedal locomotion that is able to directly take into consideration a-priori safety information in its decisions. At its core, a learning process analyzes terrain patches, classifying each…
Quadruped animals seamlessly transition between gaits as they change locomotion speeds. While the most widely accepted explanation for gait transitions is energy efficiency, there is no clear consensus on the determining factor, nor on the…
Dynamic quadruped locomotion over challenging terrains with precise foot placements is a hard problem for both optimal control methods and Reinforcement Learning (RL). Non-linear solvers can produce coordinated constraint satisfying…
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…
Legged robots have great potential to perform loco-manipulation tasks, yet it is challenging to keep the robot balanced while it interacts with the environment. In this paper we study the use of additional contact points for maximising the…
Quadruped robots face limitations in long-range navigation efficiency due to their reliance on legs. To ameliorate the limitations, we introduce a Reinforcement Learning-based Active Transporter Riding method (\textit{RL-ATR}), inspired by…
Quadruped locomotion is rapidly maturing to a degree where robots are able to realise highly dynamic manoeuvres. However, current planners are unable to vary key gait parameters of the in-swing feet midair. In this work we address this…