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(Simplified Abstract) To accomplish breakthroughs in dynamic whole-body locomotion, legged robots have to be terrain aware. Terrain-Aware Locomotion (TAL) implies that the robot can perceive the terrain with its sensors, and can take…
Dynamic locomotion of legged robots is a critical yet challenging topic in expanding the operational range of mobile robots. It requires precise planning when possible footholds are sparse, robustness against uncertainties and disturbances,…
Deformable granular terrains introduce significant locomotion and immobilization risks in planetary exploration and are difficult to detect via remote sensing (e.g., vision). Legged robots can sense terrain properties through leg-terrain…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheels with the obstacle negotiation of legs, yet many state-of-the-art systems rely on costly actuators and sensors, and fall-recovery is seldom integrated, especially for wheeled-legged…
A fundamental challenge in robot navigation lies in learning policies that generalize across diverse environments while conforming to the unique physical constraints and capabilities of a specific embodiment (e.g., quadrupeds can walk up…
We present a unified model-based and data-driven approach for quadrupedal planning and control to achieve dynamic locomotion over uneven terrain. We utilize on-board proprioceptive and exteroceptive feedback to map sensory information and…
Autonomous mobile robots operating in remote, unstructured environments must adapt to new, unpredictable terrains that can change rapidly during operation. In such scenarios, a critical challenge becomes estimating the robot's dynamics on…
Performing agile navigation with four-legged robots is a challenging task due to the highly dynamic motions, contacts with various parts of the robot, and the limited field of view of the perception sensors. In this paper, we propose a…
Ground robots require the crucial capability of traversing unstructured and unprepared terrains and avoiding obstacles to complete tasks in real-world robotics applications such as disaster response. When a robot operates in off-road field…
In this paper, we introduce a multi robot payload transport system to carry payloads through an environment of unknown and uneven inclinations while maintaining the desired orientation of the payload. For this task, we used custom built…
Legged robots that can operate autonomously in remote and hazardous environments will greatly increase opportunities for exploration into under-explored areas. Exteroceptive perception is crucial for fast and energy-efficient locomotion:…
The enhanced mobility brought by legged locomotion empowers quadrupedal robots to navigate through complex and unstructured environments. However, optimizing agile locomotion while accounting for the varying energy costs of traversing…
Operations in hazardous environments put humans, animals, and machines at high risk for physically damaging consequences. In contrast to humans and animals, quadruped robots cannot naturally identify and adjust their locomotion to a…
Mobile robots, especially those driving outdoors and in unstructured terrain, sometimes suffer from failures and errors in locomotion, like unevenly pressurized or flat tires, loose axes or de-tracked tracks. Those are errors that go…
We propose a new method for autonomous navigation in uneven terrains by utilizing a sparse Gaussian Process (SGP) based local perception model. The SGP local perception model is trained on local ranging observation (pointcloud) to learn the…
Traversability estimation in off-road terrains is an essential procedure for autonomous navigation. However, creating reliable labels for complex interactions between the robot and the surface is still a challenging problem in…
This paper presents a safe, efficient, and agile ground vehicle navigation algorithm for 3D off-road terrain environments. Off-road navigation is subject to uncertain vehicle-terrain interactions caused by different terrain conditions on…
Unknown dynamic load carrying is one important practical application for quadruped robots. Such a problem is non-trivial, posing three major challenges in quadruped locomotion control. First, how to model or represent the dynamics of the…
As both legged robots and embedded compute have become more capable, researchers have started to focus on field deployment of these robots. Robust autonomy in unstructured environments requires perception of the world around the robot in…
Legged locomotion enables robotic systems to traverse extremely challenging terrains. In many real-world scenarios, the terrain is not that difficult and these mixed terrain types introduce the need for flexible use of different walking…