Related papers: Wallbounce : Push wall to navigate with Contact-Im…
In order to achieve autonomous vertical wall climbing, the transition phase from the ground to the wall requires extra consideration inevitably. This paper focuses on the contact sequence planner to transition between flat terrain and…
This paper presents a scalable multi-robot motion planning algorithm called Conflict-Based Model Predictive Control (CB-MPC). Inspired by Conflict-Based Search (CBS), the planner leverages a similar high-level conflict tree to efficiently…
We propose a contact-explicit hierarchical architecture coupling Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Model Predictive Control (MPC), where a high-level RL agent provides gait and navigation commands to a low-level locomotion MPC. This offloads…
This paper presents a system for enabling real-time synthesis of whole-body locomotion and manipulation policies for real-world legged robots. Motivated by recent advancements in robot simulation, we leverage the efficient parallelization…
In this work, we present a multimodal system for active robot-object interaction using laser-based SLAM, RGBD images, and contact sensors. In the object manipulation task, the robot adjusts its initial pose with respect to obstacles and…
Contact-rich micromanipulation in microfluidic flow is challenging because small disturbances can break pushing contact and induce large lateral drift. We study planar cell pushing with a magnetic rolling microrobot that tracks a…
Avoiding obstacles in the perceived world has been the classical approach to autonomous mobile robot navigation. However, this usually leads to unnatural and inefficient motions that significantly differ from the way humans move in tight…
Wearable robotic hand rehabilitation devices can allow greater freedom and flexibility than their workstation-like counterparts. However, the field is generally lacking effective methods by which the user can operate the device: such…
Mobile manipulators require coordinated control between navigation and manipulation to accomplish tasks. Typically, coordinated mobile manipulation behaviors have base navigation to approach the goal followed by arm manipulation to reach…
We prove PSPACE-completeness of Push-1: given a rectangular grid of 1 x 1 cells, each possibly occupied by a movable block, can a robot move from one specified location to another, given the ability to push up to one block at a time? In…
Nonprehensile manipulation involves long horizon underactuated object interactions and physical contact with different objects that can inherently introduce a high degree of uncertainty. In this work, we introduce a novel Real-to-Sim reward…
We present a unified framework for multi-task locomotion and manipulation policy learning grounded in a contact-explicit representation. Instead of designing different policies for different tasks, our approach unifies the definition of a…
When balancing, a humanoid robot can be easily subjected to unexpected disturbances like external pushes. In these circumstances, reactive movements as steps become a necessary requirement in order to avoid potentially harmful falling…
Whole-body control (WBC) is a generic task-oriented control method for feedback control of loco-manipulation behaviors in humanoid robots. The combination of WBC and model-based walking controllers has been widely utilized in various…
We present the design and implementation of a taskable reactive mobile manipulation system. In contrary to related work, we treat the arm and base degrees of freedom as a holistic structure which greatly improves the speed and fluidity of…
Non-prehensile manipulation of diverse objects remains a core challenge in robotics, driven by unknown physical properties and the complexity of contact-rich interactions. Recent advances in contact-implicit model predictive control…
Learning-based whole-body controllers have become a key driver for humanoid robots, yet most existing approaches require robot-specific training. In this paper, we study the problem of cross-embodiment humanoid control and show that a…
Reactive control can gracefully coordinate the motion of the base and the arm of a mobile manipulator. However, incorporating an accurate representation of the environment to avoid obstacles without involving costly planning remains a…
This work explores the use of topological tools for achieving effective non-prehensile manipulation in cluttered, constrained workspaces. In particular, it proposes the use of persistent homology as a guiding principle in identifying the…
Robotic manipulators are essential for precise industrial pick-and-place operations, yet planning collision-free trajectories in dynamic environments remains challenging due to uncertainties such as sensor noise and time-varying delays.…