Related papers: Geometric Data-Driven Multi-Jet Locomotion Inspire…
Robots "in-the-wild" encounter and must traverse widely varying terrain, ranging from solid ground to granular materials like sand to full liquids. Numerous approaches exist, including wheeled and legged robots, each excelling in specific…
Reproducing the diverse and agile locomotion skills of animals has been a longstanding challenge in robotics. While manually-designed controllers have been able to emulate many complex behaviors, building such controllers involves a…
Locomotion gaits are fundamental for control of soft terrestrial robots. However, synthesis of these gaits is challenging due to modeling of robot-environment interaction and lack of a mathematical framework. This work presents an…
Objects moving in fluids experience patterns of stress on their surfaces determined by their motion and the geometry of nearby boundaries. Fish and underwater robots can use these patterns for navigation. This paper extends this…
This paper proposes a data-driven motion-planning framework for nonlinear systems that constructs a sequence of overlapping invariant polytopes. Around each randomly sampled waypoint, the algorithm identifies a convex admissible region and…
This paper describes the pragmatic design and construction of geometric fabrics for shaping a robot's task-independent nominal behavior, capturing behavioral components such as obstacle avoidance, joint limit avoidance, redundancy…
Animals run robustly in diverse terrain. This locomotion robustness is puzzling because axon conduction velocity is limited to a few ten meters per second. If reflex loops deliver sensory information with significant delays, one would…
A generic data-assisted control architecture within the port-Hamiltonian framework is proposed, introducing a physically meaningful observable that links conservative dynamics to all actuation, dissipation, and disturbance channels. A…
Jellyfish cyborgs present a promising avenue for soft robotic systems, leveraging the natural energy-efficiency and adaptability of biological systems. Here we demonstrate a novel approach to predicting and controlling jellyfish locomotion…
Data-driven modelling and synthesis of motion is an active research area with applications that include animation, games, and social robotics. This paper introduces a new class of probabilistic, generative, and controllable motion-data…
Jellyfish have been called one of the most energy-efficient animals in the world due to the ease in which they move through their fluid environment, by product of their morphological, muscular, and material properties. We investigated…
The heavy-load legged robot has strong load carrying capacity and can adapt to various unstructured terrains. But the large weight results in higher requirements for motion stability and environmental perception ability. In order to utilize…
Many animals, modern aircraft, and underwater vehicles use streamlined body shapes that reduce fluid dynamic drag to achieve fast and effective locomotion in air and water. Similarly, numerous small terrestrial animals move through…
Compared to agile legged animals, wheeled and tracked vehicles often suffer large performance loss on granular surfaces like sand and gravel. Understanding the mechanics of legged locomotion on granular media can aid the development of…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
Legged robots need to be capable of walking on diverse terrain conditions. In this paper, we present a novel reinforcement learning framework for learning locomotion on non-rigid dynamic terrains. Specifically, our framework can generate…
We present a comprehensive study on discrete morphological symmetries of dynamical systems, which are commonly observed in biological and artificial locomoting systems, such as legged, swimming, and flying animals/robots/virtual characters.…
In this paper, we present an approach to study the behavior of compliant plates in granular media and optimize the performance of a robot that utilizes this technique for mobility. From previous work and fundamental tests on thin plate…
Robots benefit from sensory information to coordinate body movement, gain robustness against perturbations, and transition between different modes to adapt to various terrains. However, few amphibious robots can sense interactions with both…