Related papers: A compliant ankle-actuated compass walker with tri…
Lower limb exoskeletons (LLEs) present the potential to make motor-impaired individuals walk again. Their application in real-world environments is still limited by the lack of effective adaptive gait planning. Indeed, current exoskeletons…
Stable bipedal walking is a key prerequisite for humanoid robots to reach their potential of being versatile helpers in our everyday environments. Bipedal walking is, however, a complex motion that requires the coordination of many degrees…
A class of planar bipedal robots with unique mechanical properties has been proposed, where all links are balanced around the hip joint, preventing natural swinging motion due to gravity. A common property of their equations of motion is…
In this letter, we formulate a novel Markov Decision Process (MDP) for safe and data-efficient learning for humanoid locomotion aided by a dynamic balancing model. In our previous studies of biped locomotion, we relied on a low-dimensional…
This paper presents a state-of-the-art optimal controller for quadruped locomotion. The robot dynamics is represented using a single rigid body (SRB) model. A linear time-varying model predictive controller (LTV MPC) is proposed by using…
Passive monitoring in daily life may provide invaluable insights about a person's health throughout the day. Wearable sensor devices are likely to play a key role in enabling such monitoring in a non-obtrusive fashion. However, sensor data…
Traversing rough terrain requires dynamic bipeds to stabilize themselves through foot placement without stepping in unsafe areas. Planning these footsteps online is challenging given non-convexity of the safe terrain, and imperfect…
An originally chaotic system can be controlled into various periodic dynamics. When it is implemented into a legged robot's locomotion control as a central pattern generator (CPG), sophisticated gait patterns arise so that the robot can…
This paper presents a novel contact-implicit trajectory optimization method using an analytically solvable contact model to enable planning of interactions with hard, soft, and slippery environments. Specifically, we propose a novel contact…
Series Elastic Actuation (SEA) has become prevalent in applications involving physical human-robot interaction as it provides considerable advantages over traditional stiff actuators in terms of stability robustness and fidelity of force…
Passivity-based control ensures system stability by leveraging dissipative properties and is widely applied in electrical and mechanical systems. Port-Hamiltonian systems (PHS), in particular, are well-suited for interconnection and damping…
This paper addresses the design and development of an autonomous biped robot using master and worker combination of controllers. In addition, the bot is wirelessly controllable. The work presented here explains the walking pattern, system…
Lower-limb prosthesis wearers are more prone to falling than non-amputees. Powered prostheses can reduce this instability of passive prostheses. While shown to be more stable in practice, powered prostheses generally use model-independent…
Foot slip is a major source of instability in bipedal locomotion on low-friction or uncertain terrain. Standard control approaches typically assume no-slip contact and therefore degrade when slip occurs. We propose a control framework that…
This paper presents a novel approach through the design and implementation of Cycloidal Quasi-Direct Drive actuators for legged robotics. The cycloidal gear mechanism, with its inherent high torque density and mechanical robustness, offers…
Our work aims to make significant strides in understanding unexplored locomotion control paradigms based on the integration of posture manipulation and thrust vectoring. These techniques are commonly seen in nature, such as Chukar birds…
Learning-based approaches have recently shown notable success in legged locomotion. However, these approaches often lack accountability, necessitating empirical tests to determine their effectiveness. In this work, we are interested in…
This paper proposes to combine a 10Hz motion planner based on a kinematic bicycle Model Predictive Control (MPC) and a 100Hz closed-loop Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller to cope with normal driving situations. Its novelty…
Legged locomotion is a complex control problem that requires both accuracy and robustness to cope with real-world challenges. Legged systems have traditionally been controlled using trajectory optimization with inverse dynamics. Such…
This paper investigates the accuracy and robustness of car-following (CF) and adaptive cruise control (ACC) models used to simulate measured driving behaviour of commercial ACCs. To this aim, a general modelling framework is proposed, in…