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Deep learning and model predictive control (MPC) can play complementary roles in legged robotics. However, integrating learned models with online planning remains challenging. When dynamics are learned with neural networks, three key…
Soft robotic systems offer benefits over traditional rigid systems through reduced contact trauma with soft tissues and by enabling access through tortuous paths in minimally invasive surgery. However, the inherent deformability of soft…
Active perception in vision-based robotic manipulation aims to move the camera toward more informative observation viewpoints, thereby providing high-quality perceptual inputs for downstream tasks. Most existing active perception methods…
Compared to rigid hands, underactuated compliant hands offer greater adaptability to object shapes, provide stable grasps, and are often more cost-effective. However, they introduce uncertainties in hand-object interactions due to their…
Controlled execution of dynamic motions in quadrupedal robots, especially those with articulated soft bodies, presents a unique set of challenges that traditional methods struggle to address efficiently. In this study, we tackle these…
Tensegrity robots possess lightweight and resilient structures but present significant challenges for state estimation due to compliant and distributed ground contacts. This paper introduces a symmetry-aware heterogeneous graph neural…
Estimating the 6D pose of textureless objects from RGB images is an important problem in robotics. Due to appearance ambiguities, rotational symmetries, and severe occlusions, single-view based 6D pose estimators are still unable to handle…
In biological systems, both skin sensitivity and body flexibility play crucial roles in haptic perception. Fully soft robots often suffer from structural fragility and delayed sensory processing, limiting their practical functionality. The…
Soft robots exhibit inherent compliance and safety, which makes them particularly suitable for applications requiring direct physical interaction with humans, such as surgical procedures. However, their nonlinear and hysteretic behavior,…
Legged locomotion benefits from embodied sensing, where perception emerges from the physical interaction between body and environment. We present a soft-surfaced, vision-based tactile foot sensor that endows a bipedal robot with a skin-like…
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,…
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…
A neural network-based framework is developed and experimentally demonstrated for the problem of estimating the shape of a soft continuum arm (SCA) from noisy measurements of the pose at a finite number of locations along the length of the…
The sophisticated sense of touch of the human hand significantly contributes to our ability to safely, efficiently, and dexterously manipulate arbitrary objects in our environment. Robotic and prosthetic devices lack refined, tactile…
State estimation for legged robots remains challenging because legged odometry generally suffers from limited observability and therefore depends critically on measurement constraints to suppress drift. When exteroceptive sensors are…
Quadrupedal robots hold promising potential for applications in navigating cluttered environments with resilience akin to their animal counterparts. However, their floating base configuration makes them vulnerable to real-world…
Muddy terrains present significant challenges for terrestrial robots, as subtle changes in composition and water content can lead to large variations in substrate strength and force responses, causing the robot to slip or get stuck. This…
Estimating the 6D pose of objects from images is an important problem in various applications such as robot manipulation and virtual reality. While direct regression of images to object poses has limited accuracy, matching rendered images…
Hardness is among the most important attributes of an object that humans learn about through touch. However, approaches for robots to estimate hardness are limited, due to the lack of information provided by current tactile sensors. In this…
Tensegrity robots, characterized by a synergistic assembly of rigid rods and elastic cables, form robust structures that are resistant to impacts. However, this design introduces complexities in kinematics and dynamics, complicating control…