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Humanoid robots hold great potential to perform various human-level skills, involving unified locomotion and manipulation in real-world settings. Driven by advances in machine learning and the strength of existing model-based approaches,…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
For legged robots to match the athletic capabilities of humans and animals, they must not only produce robust periodic walking and running, but also seamlessly switch between nominal locomotion gaits and more specialized transient…
Despite growing interest in developing legged robots that emulate biological locomotion for agile navigation of complex environments, acquiring a diverse repertoire of skills remains a fundamental challenge in robotics. Existing methods can…
Agile and adaptive maneuvers such as fall recovery, high-speed turning, and sprinting in the wild are challenging for legged systems. We propose a Curricular Hindsight Reinforcement Learning (CHRL) that learns an end-to-end tracking…
Legged rovers provide enhanced mobility compared to wheeled platforms, enabling navigation on steep and irregular planetary terrains. However, traditional legged locomotion might be energetically inefficient and potentially dangerous to the…
Robot assistants for older adults and people with disabilities need to interact with their users in collaborative tasks. The core component of these systems is an interaction manager whose job is to observe and assess the task, and infer…
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.…
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.…
In recent years, legged and wheeled-legged robots have gained prominence for tasks in environments predominantly created for humans across various domains. One significant challenge faced by many of these robots is their limited capability…
Sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) for humanoid robots with high-gear ratio actuators remains challenging due to complex actuator dynamics and the absence of torque sensors. To address this, we propose a novel RL framework leveraging…
During learning trials, systems are exposed to different failure conditions which may break robotic parts before a safe behavior is discovered. Humans contour this problem by grounding their learning to a safer structure/control first and…
This paper presents a scalable and adaptive control framework for legged robots that integrates Iterative Learning Control (ILC) with a biologically inspired torque library (TL), analogous to muscle memory. The proposed method addresses key…
Knowledge from animals and humans inspires robotic innovations. Numerous efforts have been made to achieve agile locomotion in quadrupedal robots through classical controllers or reinforcement learning approaches. These methods usually rely…
Bipedal robots are a fascinating and advanced category of robots designed to mimic human form and locomotion. The development of the bipedal robots is a significant milestone in robotics. However, even the most advanced bipedal robots are…
Quadruped robots are designed to achieve agile and robust locomotion by drawing inspiration from legged animals. However, most existing control methods for quadruped robots lack a key capacity observed in animals: the ability to exhibit…
Quadrupedal robots can learn versatile locomotion skills but remain vulnerable when one or more joints lose power. In contrast, dogs and cats can adopt limping gaits when injured, demonstrating their remarkable ability to adapt to physical…
Equipping quadruped robots with manipulators provides unique loco-manipulation capabilities, enabling diverse practical applications. This integration creates a more complex system that has increased difficulties in modeling and control.…
Exploring planetary bodies with lower gravity, such as the moon and Mars, allows legged robots to utilize jumping as an efficient form of locomotion thus giving them a valuable advantage over traditional rovers for exploration. Motivated by…
Industrial manipulators do not collapse under their own weight when powered off due to the friction in their joints. Although these mechanism are effective for stiff position control of pick-and-place, they are inappropriate for legged…