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To maintain full autonomy, autonomous robotic systems must have the ability to self-repair. Self-repairing via compensatory mechanisms appears in nature: for example, some fish can lose even 76% of their propulsive surface without loss of…
In this paper, we examine the problem of push recovery for bipedal robot locomotion and present a reactive decision-making and robust planning framework for locomotion resilient to external perturbations. Rejecting perturbations is an…
Automatic fall recovery is a crucial prerequisite before humanoid robots can be reliably deployed. Hand-designing controllers for getting up is difficult because of the varied configurations a humanoid can end up in after a fall and the…
Evolutionary robotics has aimed to optimize robot control and morphology to produce better and more robust robots. Most previous research only addresses optimization of control, and does this only in simulation. We have developed a…
Multi-legged mobile robots possess high mobility performance in rough terrain environments, stemming from their high postural stability, joint flexibility, and the redundancy provided by multiple legs. In prior research on navigating…
Legged robots leverage ground contacts and the reaction forces they provide to achieve agile locomotion. However, uncertainty coupled with contact discontinuities can lead to failure, especially in real-world environments with unexpected…
We present an integrated approach to locomotion and balancing of humanoid robots based on direct centroidal control. Our method uses a five-mass description of a humanoid. It generates whole-body motions from desired foot trajectories and…
Overcoming robotics challenges in the real world requires resilient control systems capable of handling a multitude of environments and unforeseen events. Evolutionary optimization using simulations is a promising way to automatically…
Legged robots are promising candidates for exploring challenging areas on low-gravity bodies such as the Moon, Mars, or asteroids, thanks to their advanced mobility on unstructured terrain. However, as planetary robots' power and thermal…
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,…
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…
This work introduces a model-free reinforcement learning framework that enables various modes of motion (quadruped, tripod, or biped) and diverse tasks for legged robot locomotion. We employ a motion-style reward based on a relaxed…
Thanks to recent advancements in accelerating non-linear model predictive control (NMPC), it is now feasible to deploy whole-body NMPC at real-time rates for humanoid robots. However, enforcing inequality constraints in real time for such…
We focus on the problem of developing energy efficient controllers for quadrupedal robots. Animals can actively switch gaits at different speeds to lower their energy consumption. In this paper, we devise a hierarchical learning framework,…
Developing agile behaviors for legged robots remains a challenging problem. While deep reinforcement learning is a promising approach, learning truly agile behaviors typically requires tedious reward shaping and careful curriculum design.…
Reliable and stable locomotion has been one of the most fundamental challenges for legged robots. Deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) has emerged as a promising method for developing such control policies autonomously. In this paper, we…
It remains challenging to achieve human-like locomotion in legged robots due to fundamental discrepancies between biological and mechanical structures. Although imitation learning has emerged as a promising approach for generating natural…
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…
The process of robot design is a complex task and the majority of design decisions are still based on human intuition or tedious manual tuning. A more informed way of facing this task is computational design methods where design parameters…
Locomotion on granular slopes such as sand dunes remains a fundamental challenge for legged robots due to reduced shear strength and gravity-induced anisotropic yielding of granular media. Using a hexapedal robot on a tiltable granular bed,…