Related papers: Soft Soil Gait Planning and Control for Biped Robo…
This paper presents a framework that leverages both control theory and machine learning to obtain stable and robust bipedal locomotion without the need for manual parameter tuning. Traditionally, gaits are generated through trajectory…
Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (RL) based techniques combined with training in simulation have offered a new approach to developing robust controllers for legged robots. However, the application of such approaches to real…
Continuum soft robots are mechanical systems entirely made of continuously deformable elements. This design solution aims to bring robots closer to invertebrate animals and soft appendices of vertebrate animals (e.g., an elephant's trunk, 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…
Traditional one-step preview planning algorithms for bipedal locomotion struggle to generate viable gaits when walking across terrains with restricted footholds, such as stepping stones. To overcome such limitations, this paper introduces a…
Quadrupedal locomotion over complex terrain has been a long-standing research topic in robotics. While recent reinforcement learning-based locomotion methods improve generalizability and foot-placement precision, they rely on implicit…
This paper introduces DogSurf - a newapproach of using quadruped robots to help visually impaired people navigate in real world. The presented method allows the quadruped robot to detect slippery surfaces, and to use audio and haptic…
Agriculture is currently undergoing a robotics revolution, but robots using wheeled or treads suffer from known disadvantages: they are unable to move over rubble and steep or loose ground, and they trample continuous strips of land thereby…
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…
Deformable substrates such as sand and mud present significant challenges for terrestrial robots due to complex robot-terrain interactions. Inspired by mudskippers, amphibious animals that naturally adjust their tail morphology and movement…
The ability to perform locomotion in various terrains is critical for legged robots. However, the robot has to have a better understanding of the surface it is walking on to perform robust locomotion on different terrains. Animals and…
Grasping with anthropomorphic robotic hands involves much more hand-object interactions compared to parallel-jaw grippers. Modeling hand-object interactions is essential to the study of multi-finger hand dextrous manipulation. This work…
Fast, accurate, and generalizable simulations are a key enabler of modern advances in robot design and control. However, existing simulation frameworks in robotics either model rigid environments and mechanisms only, or if they include…
Mobile robot navigation in complex and dynamic environments is a challenging but important problem. Reinforcement learning approaches fail to solve these tasks efficiently due to reward sparsities, temporal complexities and…
Soft robots are powerful tools for manipulating delicate objects, yet their adoption is hindered by two gaps: the lack of integrated tactile sensing and sensor signal distortion caused by actuator deformations. This paper addresses these…
Robust closed-loop locomotion remains challenging for soft quadruped robots due to high-dimensional dynamics, actuator hysteresis, and difficult-to-model contact interactions, while conventional proprioception provides limited information…
Dexterous robotic manipulation requires more than geometrically valid grasps: it demands physically grounded contact strategies that account for the spatially non-uniform mechanical properties of the object. However, existing grasp planners…
Soft-growing robots (i.e., vine robots) are a promising class of soft robots that allow for navigation and growth in tightly confined environments. However, these robots remain challenging to model and control due to the complex interplay…
Model-based manipulation of deformable objects has traditionally dealt with objects while neglecting their dynamics, thus mostly focusing on very lightweight objects at steady state. At the same time, soft robotic research has made…
Recent years have seen soft robotic grippers gain increasing attention due to their ability to robustly grasp soft and fragile objects. However, a commonly available standardised evaluation protocol has not yet been developed to assess the…