Related papers: Terrain Classification for the Spot Quadrupedal Mo…
Achieving safe quadrupedal locomotion in real-world environments has attracted much attention in recent years. When walking over uneven terrain, achieving reliable estimation and realising safety-critical control based on the obtained…
Terrain classification is an important problem for mobile robots operating in extreme environments as it can aid downstream tasks such as autonomous navigation and planning. While RGB cameras are widely used for terrain identification,…
Legged robot navigation in extreme environments can hinder the use of cameras and laser scanners due to darkness, air obfuscation or sensor damage. In these conditions, proprioceptive sensing will continue to work reliably. In this paper,…
Mobile ground robots operating on unstructured terrain must predict which areas of the environment they are able to pass in order to plan feasible paths. We address traversability estimation as a heightmap classification problem: we build a…
The ability of bipedal robots to adapt to diverse and unstructured terrain conditions is crucial for their deployment in real-world environments. To this end, we present a novel, bio-inspired robot foot design with stabilizing tarsal…
Mobile robots operating in unknown urban environments encounter a wide range of complex terrains to which they must adapt their planned trajectory for safe and efficient navigation. Most existing approaches utilize supervised learning to…
Accurate soil mapping is critical for a highly-automated agricultural vehicle to successfully accomplish important tasks including seeding, ploughing, fertilising and controlled traffic, with limited human supervision, ensuring at the same…
Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) near the lunar poles are of interest for future exploration due to their potential to contain water ice and preserve geological records. Their complex, uneven terrain favors the use of legged robots,…
In-situ robotic exploration is an important tool for advancing knowledge of geological processes that describe the Earth and other Planetary bodies. To inform and enhance operations for these roving laboratories, it is imperative to…
Muddy terrains present significant challenges for terrestrial robots, as subtle changes in composition and water content can lead to large variations in substrate strength and force responses, causing the robot to slip or get stuck. This…
Dynamic quadrupedal locomotion over rough terrains reveals remarkable progress over the last few decades. Small-scale quadruped robots are adequately flexible and adaptable to traverse uneven terrains along sagittal direction, such as…
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…
With the increasing demand for mobile robots and autonomous vehicles, several approaches for long-term robot navigation have been proposed. Among these techniques, ground segmentation and traversability estimation play important roles in…
Continuous robot operation in extreme scenarios such as underground mines or sewers is difficult because exteroceptive sensors may fail due to fog, darkness, dirt or malfunction. So as to enable autonomous navigation in these kinds of…
Locomotion mechanics of legged robots are suitable when pacing through difficult terrains. Recognising terrains for such robots are important to fully yoke the versatility of their movements. Consequently, robotic terrain classification…
Legged robots can traverse a wide variety of terrains, some of which may be challenging for wheeled robots, such as stairs or highly uneven surfaces. However, quadruped robots face stability challenges on slippery surfaces. This can be…
The ability to perform locomotion in various terrains is critical for legged robots. However, the robot has to have a better understanding of the surface it is walking on to perform robust locomotion on different terrains. Animals and…
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…
Robots that traverse natural terrain must interpret contact forces generated under highly dynamic conditions. However, most terrain characterization approaches rely on quasi-static assumptions that neglect velocity- and…
Terrain-aware perception holds the potential to improve the robustness and accuracy of autonomous robot navigation in the wilds, thereby facilitating effective off-road traversals. However, the lack of multi-modal perception across various…