Related papers: MorphoGear: An UAV with Multi-Limb Morphogenetic G…
In real-world field operations, aerial grasping systems face significant challenges in dynamic environments due to strong winds, shifting surfaces, and the need to handle heavy loads. Particularly when dealing with heavy objects, the…
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…
We present a rolling and jumping underactuated monopedal robot designed to explore multimodal locomotion on low-gravity bodies. It uses only two reaction wheels to control its spatial orientation with two controllers: a balancing controller…
In lunar and planetary exploration, legged robots have attracted significant attention as an alternative to conventional wheeled robots, which struggle to traverse rough and uneven terrain. To enable locomotion over highly irregular and…
Legged robots leverage ground contacts and the reaction forces they provide to achieve agile locomotion. However, uncertainty coupled with contact discontinuities can lead to failure, especially in real-world environments with unexpected…
Biped robots usually adopt feet with a rigid structure that simplifies walking on flat grounds and yet hinders ground adaptation in unstructured environments, thus jeopardizing stability. We recently explored in the SoftFoot the idea of…
Quadrupedal robots exhibit a wide range of viable gaits, but generating specific footfall sequences often requires laborious expert tuning of numerous variables, such as touch-down and lift-off events and holonomic constraints for each leg.…
Quadrupedal robots exhibit a wide range of viable gaits, but generating specific footfall sequences often requires laborious expert tuning of numerous variables, such as touch-down and lift-off events and holonomic constraints for each leg.…
Astrobee's existing one-degree-of-freedom (DOF) underactuated compliant claw gripper enables perching on the International Space Station (ISS), but provides limited capability for continuous dexterous manipulation. More complex microgravity…
Reinforcement learning has shown strong promise for quadrupedal agile locomotion, even with proprioception-only sensing. In practice, however, sim-to-real gap and reward overfitting in complex terrains can produce policies that fail to…
Exploring and navigating in extreme environments, such as caves, oceans, and planetary bodies, are often too hazardous for humans, and as such, robots are possible surrogates. These robots are met with significant locomotion challenges that…
If robots are to become ubiquitous, they will need to be able to adapt to complex and dynamic environments. Robots that can adapt their bodies while deployed might be flexible and robust enough to meet this challenge. Previous work on…
Many-legged elongated robots show promise for reliable mobility on rugged landscapes. However, most studies on these systems focus on planar motion planning without addressing rapid vertical motion. Despite their success on mild rugged…
Wheeled robots have recently demonstrated superior mechanical capability to traverse vertically challenging terrain (e.g., extremely rugged boulders comparable in size to the vehicles themselves). Negotiating such terrain introduces…
This study focuses on the locomotion capability improvement in a tendon-driven soft quadruped robot through an online adaptive learning approach. Leveraging the inverse kinematics model of the soft quadruped robot, we employ a central…
While the transport of matter by wheeled vehicles or legged robots can be guaranteed in engineered landscapes like roads or rails, locomotion prediction in complex environments like collapsed buildings or crop fields remains challenging.…
The use of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) for inspection and surveillance missions has proved to be extremely useful, however, their usability is negatively impacted by the large power requirements and the limited operating time. This work…
Grasping is a fundamental skill for interacting with the environment. However, this ability can be difficult for some (e.g. due to disability). Wearable robotic solutions can enhance or restore hand function, and recent advances have…
Continuum robots with floating bases demonstrate exceptional operational capabilities in confined spaces, such as those encountered in medical surgeries and equipment maintenance. However, developing low-cost solutions for their motion and…
While soft robot manipulators offer compelling advantages over rigid counterparts, including inherent compliance, safe human-robot interaction, and the ability to conform to complex geometries, accurate forward modeling from low-dimensional…