Related papers: A Reduced-Order Resistive Force Model for Robotic …
As mobile robots become useful performing everyday tasks in complex real-world environments, they must be able to traverse a range of difficult terrain types such as stairs, stepping stones, gaps, jumps and narrow passages. This work…
Animals locomote robustly and agile, albeit significant sensorimotor delays of their nervous system. The sensorimotor control of legged robots is implemented with much higher frequencies-often in the kilohertz range-and sensor and actuator…
Terrain-aware locomotion has become an emerging topic in legged robotics. However, it is hard to generate diverse, challenging, and realistic unstructured terrains in simulation, which limits the way researchers evaluate their locomotion…
Musculoskeletal robots that are based on pneumatic actuation have a variety of properties, such as compliance and back-drivability, that render them particularly appealing for human-robot collaboration. However, programming interactive and…
We propose in this paper a motion planning method for legged robot locomotion based on Geometric Heat Flow framework. The motion planning task is challenging due to the hybrid nature of dynamics and contact constraints. We encode the hybrid…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheeled robots when driving on suitably flat surfaces and versatility of legged robots when stepping over or around obstacles. This paper introduces a planning and control framework to realise…
Reduced-order models (ROM) are popular in online motion planning due to their simplicity. A good ROM for control captures critical task-relevant aspects of the full dynamics while remaining low dimensional. However, planning within the…
The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…
Soft robots are distinguished by their flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to perform nearly impossible tasks for rigid robots. However, controlling their behavior is challenging due to their nonlinear material response and infinite…
This paper proposes a method to evaluate the capability of aggressive legged robot landing under significant touchdown linear and angular velocities upon impact. Our approach builds upon the Planar Inverted Pendulum with Flywheel (PIPF)…
Research on untethered micro-swimming robots is growing fast owing to their potential impact on minimally invasive medical procedures. Candidate propulsion mechanisms of robots are based on flagellar mechanisms of microorganisms such as…
Legged robot navigation in unstructured and slippery terrains depends heavily on the ability to accurately identify the quality of contact between the robot's feet and the ground. Contact state estimation is regarded as a challenging…
Humanoid robots are expected to operate in human-centered environments where safe and natural physical interaction is essential. However, most recent reinforcement learning (RL) policies emphasize rigid tracking and suppress external…
An accurate motion model is an important component in modern-day robotic systems, but building such a model for a complex system often requires an appreciable amount of manual effort. In this paper we present a motion model representation,…
Dexterous manipulation requires careful reasoning over extrinsic contacts. The prevalence of deforming tools in human environments, the use of deformable sensors, and the increasing number of soft robots yields a need for approaches that…
Animals, such as birds, widely use multi-modal locomotion by combining legged and aerial mobility with dominant inertial effects. The robotic biomimicry of this multi-modal locomotion feat can yield ultra-flexible systems in terms of their…
In many systems motion occurs on deformed and deformable surfaces, setting up the possibility for dynamical interactions solely mediated by the coupling of the entities with their environment. Here we study the "two-body" dynamics of robot…
This article reviews contemporary methods for integrating force, including both proprioception and tactile sensing, in robot manipulation policy learning. We conduct a comparative analysis on various approaches for sensing force, data…
Optimal control approaches in combination with trajectory optimization have recently proven to be a promising control strategy for legged robots. Computationally efficient and robust algorithms were derived using simplified models of the…
We present experimental and numerical results for a model crawler which is able to extract net positional changes from reciprocal shape changes, i.e. 'breathing-like' deformations, thanks to directional, frictional interactions with a…