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Soft robots are notoriously hard to control. This is partly due to the scarcity of models able to capture their complex continuum mechanics, resulting in a lack of control methodologies that take full advantage of body compliance. Currently…
Robot feet are crucial for maintaining dynamic stability and propelling the body during walking, especially on uneven terrains. Traditionally, robot feet were mostly designed as flat and stiff pieces of metal, which meets its limitations…
Soft robots have the potential to revolutionize the use of robotic systems with their capability of establishing safe, robust, and adaptable interactions with their environment, but their precise control remains challenging. In contrast,…
Humanoid robots could replace humans in hazardous situations but most of such situations are equally dangerous for them, which means that they have a high chance of being damaged and falling. We hypothesize that humanoid robots would be…
Safe yet stable grasping requires a robotic hand to apply sufficient force on the object to immobilize it while keeping it from getting damaged. Soft robotic hands have been proposed for safe grasping due to their passive compliance, but…
In this paper, with a view toward deployment of light-weight control frameworks for bipedal walking robots, we realize end-foot trajectories that are shaped by a single linear feedback policy. We learn this policy via a model-free and a…
Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…
Legged robots, specifically quadrupeds, are becoming increasingly attractive for industrial applications such as inspection. However, to leave the laboratory and to become useful to an end user requires reliability in harsh conditions. From…
Offline reinforcement learning, which learns solely from datasets without environmental interaction, has gained attention. This approach, similar to traditional online deep reinforcement learning, is particularly promising for robot control…
Reinforcement learning has emerged as a promising methodology for training robot controllers. However, most results have been limited to simulation due to the need for a large number of samples and the lack of automated-yet-safe data…
Legged locomotion holds the premise of universal mobility, a critical capability for many real-world robotic applications. Both model-based and learning-based approaches have advanced the field of legged locomotion in the past three…
The safety of mobile robots in dynamic environments is predicated on making sure that they do not collide with obstacles. In support of such safety arguments, we analyze and formally verify a series of increasingly powerful safety…
Bipedal robots adapt to the environment of the modern society due to the similarity of movement to humans, and therefore they are a good partner for humans. However, maintaining the stability of these robots during walking/running motion is…
For locomotion, is an arm on a legged robot a liability or an asset for locomotion? Biological systems evolved additional limbs beyond legs that facilitates postural control. This work shows how a manipulator can be an asset for legged…
Fall recovery for legged robots remains challenging, particularly on complex terrains where traditional controllers fail due to incomplete terrain perception and uncertain interactions. We present \textbf{FR-Net}, a learning-based framework…
Learning to manipulate objects efficiently, particularly those involving sustained contact (e.g., pushing, sliding) and articulated parts (e.g., drawers, doors), presents significant challenges. Traditional methods, such as robot-centric…
This paper introduces a new method for safety-aware robot learning, focusing on repairing policies using predictive models. Our method combines behavioral cloning with neural network repair in a two-step supervised learning framework. It…
In this article, we show that learned policies can be applied to solve legged locomotion control tasks with extensive flight phases, such as those encountered in space exploration. Using an off-the-shelf deep reinforcement learning…
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…
Ensuring human safety in collaborative robotics can compromise efficiency because traditional safety measures increase robot cycle time when human interaction is frequent. This paper proposes a safety-aware approach to mitigate efficiency…