Related papers: Olympus: A Jumping Quadruped for Planetary Explora…
Legged robots have the potential to traverse complex terrain and access confined spaces beyond the reach of traditional platforms thanks to their ability to carefully select footholds and flexibly adapt their body posture while walking.…
This work aims to push the limits of agility for bipedal robots by enabling a torque-controlled bipedal robot to perform robust and versatile dynamic jumps in the real world. We present a reinforcement learning framework for training a…
Jumping poses a significant challenge for quadruped robots, despite being crucial for many operational scenarios. While optimisation methods exist for controlling such motions, they are often time-consuming and demand extensive knowledge of…
Future Mars missions will require advanced guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for the powered descent phase to target specific surface locations and achieve pinpoint accuracy (landing error ellipse $<$ 5 m radius). The latter…
Visual exploration and smart data collection via autonomous vehicles is an attractive topic in various disciplines. Disturbances like wind significantly influence both the power consumption of the flying robots and the performance of the…
Learning various motor skills for quadrupedal robots is a challenging problem that requires careful design of task-specific mathematical models or reward descriptions. In this work, we propose to learn a single capable policy using deep…
The potential of Martian lava tubes for resource extraction and habitat sheltering highlights the need for robots capable to undertake the grueling task of their exploration. Driven by this motivation, in this work we introduce a legged…
Inverted landing in a rapid and robust manner is a challenging feat for aerial robots, especially while depending entirely on onboard sensing and computation. In spite of this, this feat is routinely performed by biological fliers such as…
Legged rovers provide enhanced mobility compared to wheeled platforms, enabling navigation on steep and irregular planetary terrains. However, traditional legged locomotion might be energetically inefficient and potentially dangerous to the…
State-of-the-art reinforcement learning is now able to learn versatile locomotion, balancing and push-recovery capabilities for bipedal robots in simulation. Yet, the reality gap has mostly been overlooked and the simulated results hardly…
Space exploration missions have seen use of increasingly sophisticated robotic systems with ever more autonomy. Deep learning promises to take this even a step further, and has applications for high-level tasks, like path planning, as well…
Quadruped robots are machines intended for challenging and harsh environments. Despite the progress in locomotion strategy, safely recovering from unexpected falls or planned drops is still an open problem. It is further made more difficult…
Parkour tasks for quadrupeds have emerged as a promising benchmark for agile locomotion. While human athletes can effectively perceive environmental characteristics to select appropriate footholds for obstacle traversal, endowing legged…
Legged robots have the potential to become vital in maintenance, home support, and exploration scenarios. In order to interact with and manipulate their environments, most legged robots are equipped with a dedicated robot arm, which means…
Robots are increasingly integrated across industries, particularly in healthcare. However, many valuable applications for quadrupedal robots remain overlooked. This research explores the effectiveness of three reinforcement learning…
Pedipulation leverages the feet of legged robots for mobile manipulation, eliminating the need for dedicated robotic arms. While previous works have showcased blind and task-specific pedipulation skills, they fail to account for static and…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
Reinforcement learning methods as a promising technique have achieved superior results in the motion planning of free-floating space robots. However, due to the increase in planning dimension and the intensification of system dynamics…
In lunar and planetary exploration, legged robots have attracted significant attention as an alternative to conventional wheeled robots, which struggle to traverse rough and uneven terrain. To enable locomotion over highly irregular and…
Quadrupedal locomotion over complex terrain has been a long-standing research topic in robotics. While recent reinforcement learning-based locomotion methods improve generalizability and foot-placement precision, they rely on implicit…