Related papers: Elastic energy storage of spring-driven jumping ro…
Balancing parallel robots throughout their workspace while avoiding the use of balancing masses and respecting design practicality constraints is difficult. Medical robots demand such compact and lightweight designs. This paper considers…
An asymmetric two-link robot supported atop a flat platform by wheels that roll and pivot freely, but do not slip laterally, will develop forward momentum if the joint between the links is actuated internally. In particular, oscillations in…
Prototyping robotic systems is a time consuming process. Computer aided design, however, might speed up the process significantly. Quality-diversity evolutionary approaches optimise for novelty as well as performance, and can be used to…
A hopping leg, no matter in legged animals or humans, usually behaves like a spring during the periodic hopping. Hopping like a spring is efficient and without the requirement of complicated control algorithms. Position and force control…
Motor thermal management is often overlooked in the context of electrically-actuated robots, particularly legged robots, but motor overheating is a key factor that limits long-duration locomotion especially under payload conditions. This…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheels with the versatility of legs, but face significant energy optimization challenges when navigating diverse environments. In this work, we present a hierarchical control framework that…
To achieve highly dynamic jumps of legged robots, it is essential to control the rotational dynamics of the robot. In this paper, we aim to improve the jumping performance by proposing a unified model for planning highly dynamic jumps that…
The energetic optimization problem, e.g., searching for the optimal switch- ing protocol of certain system parameters to minimize the input work, has been extensively studied by stochastic thermodynamics. In current work, we study this…
Enhancing the explosive power output of the knee joints is critical for improving the agility and obstacle-crossing capabilities of humanoid robots. However, a mismatch between the knee-to-center-of-mass (CoM) transmission ratio and jumping…
Soft robots have immense potential given their inherent safety and adaptability, but challenges in soft actuator forces and design constraints have limited scaling up soft robots to larger sizes. Electrothermal shape memory alloy (SMA)…
The performance of legged robots depends strongly on both mechanical design and control, motivating co-design approaches that jointly optimize these parameters. However, most existing co-design studies focus on optimizing link dimensions…
The energy use of a robot is trajectory-dependent, and thus can be reduced by optimization of the trajectory. Current methods for robot trajectory optimization can reduce energy up to 15\% for fixed start and end points, however their use…
We present an approach to overcoming challenges in dynamical dexterity for robots through tunable origami structures. Our work leverages a one-parameter family of flat sheet crease patterns that folds into origami bellows, whose axial…
To detach a permanent magnet with a controlled force much smaller than its original attractive force, the Internally-Balanced Magnetic Unit (IB Magnet) was invented and has been applied to magnetic devices such as wall-climbing robots,…
The heavy-load legged robot has strong load carrying capacity and can adapt to various unstructured terrains. But the large weight results in higher requirements for motion stability and environmental perception ability. In order to utilize…
We consider a simple lattice spring model in which every spring is elastoplastic and is capable to conduct current. The elasticity bounds of spring $i$ are taken as $[-c_i,c_i]$ and the resistance of spring $i$ is taken as $1/c_i$, which…
Achieving versatile and explosive motion with robustness against dynamic uncertainties is a challenging task. Introducing parallel compliance in quadrupedal design is deemed to enhance locomotion performance, which, however, makes the…
Many small animals, particularly insects, use power-amplification to generate rapid motions, such as jumping, that would otherwise be impossible given the standard power density of muscle. A common framework for understanding this power…
Via numerical simulation and experimental assessment, this study examines the use of origami folding to develop robotic jumping mechanisms with tailored nonlinear stiffness to improve dynamic performance. Specifically, we use Tachi-Miura…
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…