Related papers: Buoyant Choreographies: Harmonies of Light, Sound,…
The light and soft characteristics of Buoyancy Assisted Lightweight Legged Unit (BALLU) robots have a great potential to provide intrinsically safe interactions in environments involving humans, unlike many heavy and rigid robots. However,…
Soft robotic actuators can simplify the design of controllers when operating in contact-rich environments. Importantly, their passive compliance fundamentally alters contact mechanics by smoothing impacts and distributing forces over large…
This paper describes the robot technology behind an original performance that pairs a human dancer (Cuan) with an industrial robot arm for an eight-hour dance that unfolds over the timespan of an American workday. To control the robot arm,…
Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…
Legged robots can have a unique role in manipulating objects in dynamic, human-centric, or otherwise inaccessible environments. Although most legged robotics research to date typically focuses on traversing these challenging environments,…
We present the design and experimental results of the first 1-DOF, hip-actuated bipedal robot. While passive dynamic walking is simple by nature, many existing bipeds inspired by this form of walking are complex in control, mechanical…
Animals locomote robustly and agile, albeit significant sensorimotor delays of their nervous system. The sensorimotor control of legged robots is implemented with much higher frequencies-often in the kilohertz range-and sensor and actuator…
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…
In this work we present AURA, a framework for synergistic human-artist painting. We developed a robot arm that collaboratively paints with a human artist. The robot has an awareness of the artist's heartbeat through the EmotiBit sensor,…
In this paper, we present a novel rolling, jumping robot. The robot consists of a driven pendulum mounted to a wheel in a compact, lightweight, 3D printed design. We show that by driving the pendulum to shift the robot's weight…
This paper presents the modeling and numerical analysis of the Kangaroo lower body prototype, a novel bipedal humanoid robot developed and manufactured by PAL Robotics. Kangaroo features high-power linear electric actuators combined with…
Shape-changing interfaces are promising for users to change the physical properties of common objects. However, prevailing approaches of actuation devices require either professional equipment or materials that are not commonly accessible…
We present the first free-floating autonomous underwater construction system capable of using active ballasting to transport cement building blocks efficiently. It is the first free-floating autonomous construction robot to use a paired set…
Legged robots have achieved impressive feats in dynamic locomotion in challenging unstructured terrain. However, in entertainment applications, the design and control of these robots face additional challenges in appealing to human…
The ability of legged systems to traverse highly-constrained environments depends by and large on the performance of their motion and balance controllers. This paper presents a controller that excels in a scenario that most state-of-the-art…
Spatial Orchestra demonstrates how easy it is to play musical instruments using basic input like natural locomotion, which is accessible to most. Unlike many musical instruments, our work allows individuals of all skill levels to…
Robotic legs have bimodal operations: swing phases when the leg needs to move quickly in the air (high-speed, low-force) and stance phases when the leg bears the weight of the system (low-speed, high-force). Sizing a traditional…
We introduce Berkeley Humanoid, a reliable and low-cost mid-scale humanoid research platform for learning-based control. Our lightweight, in-house-built robot is designed specifically for learning algorithms with low simulation complexity,…
Within minutes of birth a newborn gnu or giraffe works to stand and walk, asserting postural balance and organised animate behaviour in an apparently goal-directed manner. In contrast, robots learning to stand and walk from scratch begin…
We explore Calico, a miniature relocatable wearable system with fast and precise locomotion for on-body interaction, actuation and sensing. Calico consists of a two-wheel robot and an on-cloth track mechanism or "railway," on which the…