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Legged robots can traverse challenging terrain, use perception to plan their safe foothold positions, and navigate the environment. Such unique mobility capabilities make these platforms a perfect candidate for scenarios such as search and…
Partial-assistance exoskeletons hold significant potential for gait rehabilitation by promoting active participation during (re)learning of normative walking patterns. Typically, the control of interaction torques in partial-assistance…
Quadruped robots have shown remarkable mobility on various terrains through reinforcement learning. Yet, in the presence of sparse footholds and risky terrains such as stepping stones and balance beams, which require precise foot placement…
We address the challenge of effectively controlling the locomotion of legged robots by incorporating precise frequency and phase characteristics, which is often ignored in locomotion policies that do not account for the periodic nature of…
High-speed legged navigation in discrete and geometrically complex environments is a challenging task because of the high-degree-of-freedom dynamics and long-horizon, nonconvex nature of the optimization problem. In this work, we propose a…
A great advantage of legged robots is their ability to operate on particularly difficult and obstructed terrain, which demands dynamic, robust, and precise movements. The study of obstacle courses provides invaluable insights into the…
Recently, reinforcement learning has become a promising and polular solution for robot legged locomotion. Compared to model-based control, reinforcement learning based controllers can achieve better robustness against uncertainties of…
Humanoid robots are made to resemble humans but their locomotion abilities are far from ours in terms of agility and versatility. When humans walk on complex terrains, or face external disturbances, they combine a set of strategies,…
During learning trials, systems are exposed to different failure conditions which may break robotic parts before a safe behavior is discovered. Humans contour this problem by grounding their learning to a safer structure/control first and…
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…
The Underactuated Lightweight Tensegrity Robotic Assistive Spine (ULTRA Spine) project is an ongoing effort to develop a flexible, actuated backbone for quadruped robots. In this work, model-predictive control is used to track a trajectory…
Legged robots are able to navigate complex terrains by continuously interacting with the environment through careful selection of contact sequences and timings. However, the combinatorial nature behind contact planning hinders the…
A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…
Quadruped robots are often designed with rigid feet to simplify control and maintain stable contact during locomotion. While this approach is straightforward, it limits the ability of the legs to absorb impact forces and reuse stored…
For the deployment of legged robots in real-world environments, it is essential to develop robust locomotion control methods for challenging terrains that may exhibit unexpected deformability and irregularity. In this paper, we explore the…
The complexity of a legged robot's environment or task can inform how specialised its gait must be to ensure success. Evolving specialised robotic gaits demands many evaluations - acceptable for computer simulations, but not for physical…
Many methods exist for a bipedal robot to keep its balance while walking. In addition to step size and timing, other strategies are possible that influence the stability of the robot without interfering with the target direction and speed…
Bipedal robots promise the ability to traverse rough terrain quickly and efficiently, and indeed, humanoid robots can now use strong ankles and careful foot placement to traverse discontinuous terrain. However, more agile underactuated…
The task of self-balancing is one of the most important tasks when developing humanoid robots. This paper proposes a novel external balance mechanism for humanoid robot to maintain sideway balance. First, a dynamic model of the humanoid…
Hybrid systems theory has become a powerful approach for designing feedback controllers that achieve dynamically stable bipedal locomotion, both formally and in practice. This paper presents an analytical framework 1) to address…