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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…
Navigating unfamiliar environments presents significant challenges for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals. In this work, we construct a dataset of images and goals across different scenarios such as searching through kitchens or…
Mobile telepresence robots (MTRs) allow people to navigate and interact with a remote environment that is in a place other than the person's true location. Thanks to the recent advances in 360 degree vision, many MTRs are now equipped with…
Robot navigation in crowded public spaces is a complex task that requires addressing a variety of engineering and human factors challenges. These challenges have motivated a great amount of research resulting in important developments for…
Recent Vision-and-Language Navigation (VLN) advancements are promising, but their idealized assumptions about robot movement and control fail to reflect physically embodied deployment challenges. To bridge this gap, we introduce VLN-PE, a…
Mobile robots are increasingly being deployed in public spaces such as shopping malls, airports, and urban sidewalks. Most of these robots are designed with human-aware motion planning capabilities but are not designed to communicate with…
As the global population ages, many seniors face the problem of loneliness. Companion robots offer a potential solution. However, current companion robots often lack advanced functionality, while task-oriented robots are not designed for…
Recent development in developing humanoid robot poses new challenges to human-machine interaction communication. A major challenge is to develop robots that can behave like and interact with human in the most natural way possible. This…
Robotics has shown significant potential in assisting people with disabilities to enhance their independence and involvement in daily activities. Indeed, a societal long-term impact is expected in home-care assistance with the deployment of…
Legged robots must adapt their gait to navigate unpredictable environments, a challenge that animals master with ease. However, most deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches to quadruped locomotion rely on a fixed gait, limiting…
Recent technological advancements in small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have led to the development of companion UAVs. Similar to conventional companion robots, companion UAVs have the potential to assist us in our daily lives and…
Blind and low-vision (BLV) people rely on GPS-based systems for outdoor navigation. GPS's inaccuracy, however, causes them to veer off track, run into obstacles, and struggle to reach precise destinations. While prior work has made precise…
This paper introduces CognitiveDog, a pioneering development of quadruped robot with Large Multi-modal Model (LMM) that is capable of not only communicating with humans verbally but also physically interacting with the environment through…
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…
Assistance robots are the future for people who need daily care due to limited mobility or being wheelchair-bound. Current solutions of attaching robotic arms to motorized wheelchairs only provide limited additional mobility at the cost of…
Quadruped animals are capable of exhibiting a diverse range of locomotion gaits. While progress has been made in demonstrating such gaits on robots, current methods rely on motion priors, dynamics models, or other forms of extensive manual…
Robotic vision for human-robot interaction and collaboration is a critical process for robots to collect and interpret detailed information related to human actions, goals, and preferences, enabling robots to provide more useful services to…
Animals use limbs for both locomotion and manipulation. We aim to equip quadruped robots with similar versatility. This work introduces a system that enables quadruped robots to interact with objects using their legs, inspired by…
Quadruped robots are currently a widespread platform for robotics research, thanks to powerful Reinforcement Learning controllers and the availability of cheap and robust commercial platforms. However, to broaden the adoption of the…
Robots operating in close proximity to humans rely heavily on human trust to successfully complete their tasks. But what are the real outcomes when this trust is violated? Self-defense law provides a framework for analyzing tangible failure…