Related papers: Proprioception and reaction for walking among enta…

As both legged robots and embedded compute have become more capable, researchers have started to focus on field deployment of these robots. Robust autonomy in unstructured environments requires perception of the world around the robot in…

Legged robots leverage ground contacts and the reaction forces they provide to achieve agile locomotion. However, uncertainty coupled with contact discontinuities can lead to failure, especially in real-world environments with unexpected…

Legged robots that can operate autonomously in remote and hazardous environments will greatly increase opportunities for exploration into under-explored areas. Exteroceptive perception is crucial for fast and energy-efficient locomotion:…

Pedipulation leverages the feet of legged robots for mobile manipulation, eliminating the need for dedicated robotic arms. While previous works have showcased blind and task-specific pedipulation skills, they fail to account for static and…

Tactile perception is an essential ability of intelligent robots in interaction with their surrounding environments. This perception as an intermediate level acts between sensation and action and has to be defined properly to generate…

Traversing 3-D complex environments has always been a significant challenge for legged locomotion. Existing methods typically rely on external sensors such as vision and lidar to preemptively react to obstacles by acquiring environmental…

The motion of robots and objects in our world is often highly dependent upon contact. When contact is expected but does not occur or when contact is not expected but does occur, robot behavior diverges from plan, often disastrously. This…

Animals can finely modulate their leg stiffness to interact with complex terrains and absorb sudden shocks. In feats like leaping and sprinting, animals demonstrate a sophisticated interplay of opposing muscle pairs that actively modulate…

Legged robots have the potential to traverse complex terrain and access confined spaces beyond the reach of traditional platforms thanks to their ability to carefully select footholds and flexibly adapt their body posture while walking.…

In this paper, we outline an interleaved acting and planning technique to rapidly reduce the uncertainty of the estimated robot's pose by perceiving relevant information from the environment, as recognizing an object or asking someone for a…

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…

Legged robots can traverse a wide variety of terrains, some of which may be challenging for wheeled robots, such as stairs or highly uneven surfaces. However, quadruped robots face stability challenges on slippery surfaces. This can be…

We propose a novel method, ProNav, which uses proprioceptive signals for traversability estimation in challenging outdoor terrains for autonomous legged robot navigation. Our approach uses sensor data from a legged robot's joint encoders,…

Quadruped robots must exhibit robust walking capabilities in practical applications. In this work, we propose a novel approach that enables quadruped robots to pass various small obstacles, or "tiny traps". Existing methods often rely on…

Dynamic locomotion of legged robots is a critical yet challenging topic in expanding the operational range of mobile robots. It requires precise planning when possible footholds are sparse, robustness against uncertainties and disturbances,…

In this article we consider the problem of tether entanglement for tethered mobile robots. One of the main risks of using a tethered connection between a mobile robot and an anchor point is that the tether may get entangled with the…

Legged robots have the potential to become vital in maintenance, home support, and exploration scenarios. In order to interact with and manipulate their environments, most legged robots are equipped with a dedicated robot arm, which means…

Multi-legged elongate robots hold promise for maneuvering through complex environments. Prior work has demonstrated that reliable locomotion can be achieved using open-loop body undulation and foot placement on rugose terrain. However,…

This work developed a learning framework for perceptive legged locomotion that combines visual feedback, proprioceptive information, and active gait regulation of foot-ground contacts. The perception requires only one forward-facing camera…

This paper presents a framework for dynamic object catching using a quadruped robot's front legs while it stands on its rear legs. The system integrates computer vision, trajectory prediction, and leg control to enable the quadruped to…