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This paper presents a data-driven strategy to streamline the deployment of model-based controllers in legged robotic hardware platforms. Our approach leverages a model-free safe learning algorithm to automate the tuning of control gains,…

Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…

This paper proposes an algorithm capable of driving a system to follow a piecewise linear trajectory without prior knowledge of the system dynamics. Motivated by a critical failure scenario in which a system can experience an abrupt change…

Robots are expected to replace menial tasks such as housework. Some of these tasks include nonprehensile manipulation performed without grasping objects. Nonprehensile manipulation is very difficult because it requires considering the…

Modular and reconfigurable robotic systems have been designed to provide a customized solution for the non-repetitive tasks to be performed in a constrained environment. Customized solutions are normally extracted from task-based…

Reconfigurable robot swarms are capable of connecting with each other to form complex structures. Current mechanical or magnetic connection mechanisms can be complicated to manufacture, consume high power, have a limited load-bearing…

One of the standing challenges in multi-robot systems is the ability to reliably coordinate motions of multiple robots in environments where the robots are subject to disturbances. We consider disturbances that force the robot to…

The design of gaits for robot locomotion can be a daunting process which requires significant expert knowledge and engineering. This process is even more challenging for robots that do not have an accurate physical model, such as compliant…

Robots operating in human environments need various skills, like slow and fast walking, turning, side-stepping, and many more. However, building robot controllers that can exhibit such a large range of behaviors is a challenging problem…

Local or reactive navigation is essential for autonomous mobile robots which operate in an indoor environment. Techniques such as SLAM, computer vision require significant computational power which increases cost. Similarly, using…

The physics of behavior seeks simple descriptions of animal behavior. The field has advanced rapidly by using techniques in low dimensional dynamics distilled from computer vision. Yet, we still do not generally understand the rules which…

This paper addresses the design and development of an autonomous biped robot using master and worker combination of controllers. In addition, the bot is wirelessly controllable. The work presented here explains the walking pattern, system…

Soft robots offer unmatched adaptability and safety in unstructured environments, yet their compliant, high-dimensional, and nonlinear dynamics make modeling for control notoriously difficult. Existing data-driven approaches often fail to…

We propose a method to generate actuation plans for a reduced order, dynamic model of bipedal running. This method explicitly enforces robustness to ground uncertainty. The plan generated is not a fixed body trajectory that is aggressively…

This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…

Complex and even chaotic dynamics, though prevalent in many natural and engineered systems, has been largely avoided in the design of electromechanical systems due to concerns about wear and controlability. Here, we demonstrate that complex…

Locomotion for legged robots poses considerable challenges when confronted by obstacles and adverse environments. Footstep planners are typically only designed for one mode of locomotion, but traversing unfavorable environments may require…

This article presents a multi-robot trajectory planning method which not only guarantees optimization feasibility and but also resolves deadlocks in obstacle-dense environments. The method is proposed via formulating a recursive…

Object rearrangement is a fundamental problem in robotics with various practical applications ranging from managing warehouses to cleaning and organizing home kitchens. While existing research has primarily focused on single-agent…

While traditional robotic systems come with a monolithic system design, reconfigurable multi-robot systems can share and shift physical resources in an on-demand fashion. Multi-robot operations can benefit from this flexibility by actively…