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Legged robots can outperform wheeled machines for most navigation tasks across unknown and rough terrains. For such tasks, visual feedback is a fundamental asset to provide robots with terrain-awareness. However, robust dynamic locomotion…
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…
Legged robots navigating cluttered environments must be jointly agile for efficient task execution and safe to avoid collisions with obstacles or humans. Existing studies either develop conservative controllers (< 1.0 m/s) to ensure safety,…
Planning under uncertainty is a crucial capability for autonomous systems to operate reliably in uncertain and dynamic environments. The concern of safety becomes even more critical in healthcare settings where robots interact with human…
The robustness of legged locomotion is crucial for quadrupedal robots in challenging terrains. Recently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown promising results in legged locomotion and various methods try to integrate privileged…
Gravitational forces can induce deviations in body posture from desired configurations in multi-legged arboreal robot locomotion with low leg stiffness, affecting the contact angle between the swing leg's end-effector and the climbing…
Unseen shifts in environment dynamics, driven by hidden parameters such as friction or gravity, create a challenge for maintaining safety. We address this challenge by proposing Adaptive Shielding, a framework for safe reinforcement…
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…
Recent advances in generative modeling have led to promising results in robot motion planning, particularly through diffusion and flow matching (FM)-based models that capture complex, multimodal trajectory distributions. However, these…
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by the…
This extended abstract provides a short introduction on our recently developed perception-based controller for quadrupedal locomotion. Compared to our previous approach based on Visual Foothold Adaptation (VFA) and Model Predictive Control…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheels with the obstacle negotiation of legs, yet many state-of-the-art systems rely on costly actuators and sensors, and fall-recovery is seldom integrated, especially for wheeled-legged…
The integration of foundation models (FMs) into robotics has accelerated real-world deployment, while introducing new safety challenges arising from open-ended semantic reasoning and embodied physical action. These challenges require safety…
Safety stands as the primary obstacle preventing the widespread adoption of learning-based robotic systems in our daily lives. While reinforcement learning (RL) shows promise as an effective robot learning paradigm, conventional RL…
Jumping is essential for legged robots to traverse through difficult terrains. In this work, we propose a hierarchical framework that combines optimal control and reinforcement learning to learn continuous jumping motions for quadrupedal…
Recently, there has been a growing interest in rescue robots due to their vital role in addressing emergency scenarios and providing crucial support in challenging or hazardous situations where human intervention is difficult. However, very…
Dynamic jumping on high platforms and over gaps differentiates legged robots from wheeled counterparts. Dynamic locomotion on abrupt surfaces, as opposed to walking on rough terrains, demands the integration of proprioceptive and…
The aging population has led to a growing number of falls in our society, affecting global public health worldwide. This paper presents CareFall, an automatic Fall Detection System (FDS) based on wearable devices and Artificial Intelligence…
Falls are a major cause of injuries and deaths among older adults worldwide. Accurate fall detection can help reduce potential injuries and additional health complications. Different types of video modalities can be used in a home setting…
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…