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Safe and real-time navigation is fundamental for humanoid robot applications. However, existing bipedal robot navigation frameworks often struggle to balance computational efficiency with the precision required for stable locomotion. We…

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…

The sim-to-real gap, which represents the disparity between training and testing environments, poses a significant challenge in reinforcement learning (RL). A promising approach to addressing this challenge is distributionally robust RL,…

Most reinforcement learning (RL) methods focus on learning optimal policies over low-level action spaces. While these methods can perform well in their training environments, they lack the flexibility to transfer to new tasks. Instead, RL…

Multi-fingered robotic hands have potential to enable robots to perform sophisticated manipulation tasks. However, teaching a robot to grasp objects with an anthropomorphic hand is an arduous problem due to the high dimensionality of state…

Soft robots are gaining popularity thanks to their intrinsic safety to contacts and adaptability. However, the potentially infinite number of Degrees of Freedom makes their modeling a daunting task, and in many cases only an approximated…

Autonomous learning has been a promising direction in control and robotics for more than a decade since data-driven learning allows to reduce the amount of engineering knowledge, which is otherwise required. However, autonomous…

Robotic systems are increasingly employed for industrial automation, with contact-rich tasks like polishing requiring dexterity and compliant behaviour. These tasks are difficult to model, making classical control challenging. Deep…

Modern reinforcement learning (RL) systems capture deep truths about general, human problem-solving. In domains where new data can be simulated cheaply, these systems uncover sequential decision-making policies that far exceed the ability…

Learning by interaction is the key to skill acquisition for most living organisms, which is formally called Reinforcement Learning (RL). RL is efficient in finding optimal policies for endowing complex systems with sophisticated behavior.…

Effective planning in model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) and model-predictive control (MPC) relies on the accuracy of the learned dynamics model. In many instances of MBRL and MPC, this model is assumed to be stationary and is…

While reinforcement learning (RL) has the potential to enable robots to autonomously acquire a wide range of skills, in practice, RL usually requires manual, per-task engineering of reward functions, especially in real world settings where…

Reinforcement learning (RL) holds great promise for enabling autonomous acquisition of complex robotic manipulation skills, but realizing this potential in real-world settings has been challenging. We present a human-in-the-loop…

Most successes in robotic manipulation have been restricted to single-arm robots, which limits the range of solvable tasks to pick-and-place, insertion, and objects rearrangement. In contrast, dual and multi arm robot platforms unlock a…

Robotic grasping presents a difficult motor task in real-world scenarios, constituting a major hurdle to the deployment of capable robots across various industries. Notably, the scarcity of data makes grasping particularly challenging for…

The success of reinforcement learning for real world robotics has been, in many cases limited to instrumented laboratory scenarios, often requiring arduous human effort and oversight to enable continuous learning. In this work, we discuss…

Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a powerful approach for robots to learn complex, collaborative skills by combining Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs) for motion and Variable Impedance Control (VIC) for compliant interaction. However,…

We propose a framework to enable multipurpose assistive mobile robots to autonomously wipe tables to clean spills and crumbs. This problem is challenging, as it requires planning wiping actions while reasoning over uncertain latent dynamics…

Robot learning is often difficult due to the expense of gathering data. The need for large amounts of data can, and should, be tackled with effective algorithms and leveraging expert information on robot dynamics. Bayesian reinforcement…

Robotic grasping under uncertainty remains a fundamental challenge due to its uncertain and contact-rich nature. Traditional rigid robotic hands, with limited degrees of freedom and compliance, rely on complex model-based and heavy feedback…