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For locomotion, is an arm on a legged robot a liability or an asset for locomotion? Biological systems evolved additional limbs beyond legs that facilitates postural control. This work shows how a manipulator can be an asset for legged…
A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…
Falling cat problem is well-known where cats show their super aerial reorientation capability and can land safely. For their robotic counterparts, a similar falling quadruped robot problem, has not been fully addressed, although achieving…
The waist plays a crucial role in the agile movement of many animals in nature. It provides the torso with additional degrees of freedom and flexibility, inspiring researchers to incorporate this biological feature into robotic structures…
In the field of fixed wing aircraft, many morphing technologies have been applied to the wing, such as adaptive airfoil, variable span aircraft, variable swept angle aircraft, etc., but few are aimed at the tail. The traditional fixed wing…
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…
Tails used as inertial appendages induce body rotations of animals and robots, a phenomenon that is governed largely by the ratio of the body and tail moments of inertia. However, vertebrate tails have more degrees of freedom (e.g., number…
The previously introduced aerial manipulation systems suffer from either limited end-effector DOF or small payload capacity. In this dissertation, a quadrotor with a 2-DOF manipulator is investigated that has a unique topology to enable the…
In experimental robotics, researchers may face uncertainties in parameters of a robot manipulator that they are working with. This uncertainty may be caused by deviations in the manufacturing process of a manipulator, or changes applied to…
A motion-based control interface promises flexible robot operations in dangerous environments by combining user intuitions with the robot's motor capabilities. However, designing a motion interface for non-humanoid robots, such as…
The spine plays a crucial role in the dynamic locomotion of quadrupedal animals, improving the stability, speed, and efficiency of their gait, especially for fast-paced and highly agile movements. Therefore, the spine is also a promising…
Locomotion has seen dramatic progress for walking or running across challenging terrains. However, robotic quadrupeds are still far behind their biological counterparts, such as dogs, which display a variety of agile skills and can use the…
Developing agile behaviors for legged robots remains a challenging problem. While deep reinforcement learning is a promising approach, learning truly agile behaviors typically requires tedious reward shaping and careful curriculum design.…
Dual-arm manipulation is an area of growing interest in the robotics community. Enabling robots to perform tasks that require the coordinated use of two arms, is essential for complex manipulation tasks such as handling large objects,…
Legged manipulators extend robotic capabilities beyond static manipulation by integrating agile locomotion with versatile arm control. However, achieving precise manipulation while maintaining coordinated locomotion remains a major…
Tilt-rotor aerial robots enable omnidirectional maneuvering through thrust vectoring, but introduce significant control challenges due to the strong coupling between joint and rotor dynamics. While model-based controllers can achieve high…
Aerial manipulators, which combine robotic arms with multi-rotor drones, face strict constraints on arm weight and mechanical complexity. In this work, we study a lightweight 2-degree-of-freedom (DoF) arm mounted on a quadrotor via a…
Quadruped robots are usually equipped with additional arms for manipulation, negatively impacting price and weight. On the other hand, the requirements of legged locomotion mean that the legs of such robots often possess the needed torque…
Navigating rugged landscapes poses significant challenges for legged locomotion. Multi-legged robots (those with 6 and greater) offer a promising solution for such terrains, largely due to their inherent high static stability, resulting…
Quadruped robots are progressively being integrated into human environments. Despite the growing locomotion capabilities of quadrupedal robots, their interaction with objects in realistic scenes is still limited. While additional robotic…