Related papers: Anisotropic body compliance facilitates robotic si…
This paper presents a unified control framework for robust trajectory tracking and moving obstacle avoidance applicable to a broad class of mobile robots. By formulating a generalized kinematic transformation, we convert diverse vehicle…
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…
Humanoid robots are made to resemble humans but their locomotion abilities are far from ours in terms of agility and versatility. When humans walk on complex terrains, or face external disturbances, they combine a set of strategies,…
Robot controllers are often optimised for a single robot in a single environment. This approach proves brittle, as such a controller will often fail to produce sensible behavior for a new morphology or environment. In comparison, animal…
A robot guide dog has compelling advantages over animal guide dogs for its cost-effectiveness, potential for mass production, and low maintenance burden. However, despite the long history of guide dog robot research, previous studies were…
Inspired by the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, articulated soft robots are robotic systems embedding elastic elements into a classic rigid (skeleton-like) structure. Leveraging on their bodies elasticity, soft robots promise to…
We present a trajectory planning and control architecture for bipedal locomotion at a variety of speeds on a highly underactuated and compliant bipedal robot. A library of compliant walking trajectories are planned offline, and stored as…
Inspired by animals that co-adapt their brain and body to interact with the environment, we present a tendon-driven and over-actuated (i.e., n joint, n+1 actuators) bipedal robot that (i) exploits its backdrivable mechanical properties to…
Reconfigurable robots are at the forefront of robotics innovation due to their unmatched versatility and adaptability in addressing various tasks through collaborative operations. This paper explores the design and implementation of a novel…
Endowing continuum robots with compliance while it is interacting with the internal environment of the human body is essential to prevent damage to the robot and the surrounding tissues. Compared with passive compliance, active compliance…
While quadruped robots usually have good stability and load capacity, bipedal robots offer a higher level of flexibility / adaptability to different tasks and environments. A multi-modal legged robot can take the best of both worlds. In…
Humanoid robots deployed in industrial environments are required to perform load-carrying transportation tasks that tightly couple locomotion and manipulation. However, achieving stable and robust locomotion under varying payloads and…
This article propose a whole-body impedance coordinative control framework for a wheel-legged humanoid robot to achieve adaptability on complex terrains while maintaining robot upper body stability. The framework contains a bi-level control…
Snake robots have been studied for decades with the aim of achieving biological snakes' fluent locomotion. Yet, as of today, their locomotion remains far from that of the biological snakes. Our recent study suggested that snake locomotion…
Soft robotics has advanced rapidly, yet its control methods remain fragmented: different morphologies and actuation schemes still require task-specific controllers, hindering theoretical integration and large-scale deployment. A generic…
Humanoid robots, as general-purpose physical agents, must integrate both intelligent control and adaptive morphology to operate effectively in diverse real-world environments. While recent research has focused primarily on optimizing…
This paper proposes a safety-critical locomotion control framework employed for legged robots exploring through infeasible path in obstacle-rich environments. Our research focus is on achieving safe and robust locomotion where robots…
Robots operating in human environments need various skills, like slow and fast walking, turning, side-stepping, and many more. However, building robot controllers that can exhibit such a large range of behaviors is a challenging problem…
Snakes' bodies are covered in scales that make it easier to slide in some directions than in others. This frictional anisotropy allows for sliding locomotion with an undulatory gait, one of the most common for snakes. Isotropic friction is…
To reproduce natural standing-up motion, recent studies have emphasized the importance of coordination between the assisting robot and the human. However, many non-wearable assistive devices have struggled to replicate natural motion…