Related papers: Quadrupeds for Planetary Exploration: Field Testin…
In flood disaster rescue scenarios, partially submerged buildings prevent aerial robots from accessing lower levels, limiting mission effectiveness. To address this challenge, this paper presents Wukong-Omni, a novel multimode robot capable…
The increasingly complex and diverse planetary exploration environment requires more adaptable and flexible rover navigation strategy. In this study, we propose a VLM-empowered multi-mode system to achieve efficient while safe autonomous…
Most conventional wheeled robots can only move in flat environments and simply divide their planar workspaces into free spaces and obstacles. Deeming obstacles as non-traversable significantly limits wheeled robots' mobility in real-world,…
Despite the progress in legged robotic locomotion, autonomous navigation in unknown environments remains an open problem. Ideally, the navigation system utilizes the full potential of the robots' locomotion capabilities while operating…
Many-legged elongated robots show promise for reliable mobility on rugged landscapes. However, most studies on these systems focus on planar motion planning without addressing rapid vertical motion. Despite their success on mild rugged…
This paper presents a deep learning framework designed to enhance the grasping capabilities of quadrupeds equipped with arms, with a focus on improving precision and adaptability. Our approach centers on a sim-to-real methodology that…
This paper proposes a safety-critical locomotion control framework employed for legged robots exploring through infeasible path in obstacle-rich environments. Our research focus is on achieving safe and robust locomotion where robots…
This thesis enhances the autonomy of the M4 (Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot) robot, designed for Mars and rescue missions. The research enables the robot to autonomously select its locomotion mode and path in complex terrains. Focusing on…
In disaster response and situation assessment, robots have great potential in reducing the risks to the safety and health of first responders. As the situations encountered and the required capabilities of the robots deployed in such…
Achieving controlled jumping behaviour for a quadruped robot is a challenging task, especially when introducing passive compliance in mechanical design. This study addresses this challenge via imitation-based deep reinforcement learning…
So far, planetary surface exploration depends on various mobile robot platforms. The autonomous navigation and decision-making of these mobile robots in complex terrains largely rely on their terrain-aware perception, localization and…
This paper presents a safety-critical locomotion control framework for quadrupedal robots. Our goal is to enable quadrupedal robots to safely navigate in cluttered environments. To tackle this, we introduce exponential Discrete Control…
Quadrupedal robots hold promising potential for applications in navigating cluttered environments with resilience akin to their animal counterparts. However, their floating base configuration makes them vulnerable to real-world…
Achieving versatile and explosive motion with robustness against dynamic uncertainties is a challenging task. Introducing parallel compliance in quadrupedal design is deemed to enhance locomotion performance, which, however, makes the…
The exploration of planetary surfaces is predominately unmanned, calling for a landing vehicle and an autonomous and/or teleoperated rover. Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques can be leveraged for better mission…
Operating satellites in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) benefits the already expanding New Space industry in applications including Earth Observation and beyond. However, long-term operations at such low altitudes require propulsion systems to…
Robotic Exploration has evolved rapidly in the past two decades as new and more complex techniques have been created to explore unknown regions efficiently. Exciting advancements in exploration, autonomous navigation, and sensor technology…
Quadrupedal robots show great potential for valuable real-world applications such as fire rescue and industrial inspection. Such applications often require urgency and the ability to navigate agilely, which in turn demands the capability to…
Caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars are sites of geological and astrobiological interest but consist of terrain that is inaccessible with traditional robot locomotion. To support the exploration of these sites, we present ReachBot, a…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has become a promising approach to developing controllers for quadrupedal robots. Conventionally, an RL design for locomotion follows a position-based paradigm, wherein an RL policy outputs target joint positions…