Related papers: Terrain characterization and locomotion adaptation…
We present Self-Adaptive Robust Attention for Robotics Transformers (SARA-RT): a new paradigm for addressing the emerging challenge of scaling up Robotics Transformers (RT) for on-robot deployment. SARA-RT relies on the new method of…
Legged robot locomotion on sand slopes is challenging due to the complex dynamics of granular media and how the lack of solid surfaces can hinder locomotion. A promising strategy, inspired by ghost crabs and other organisms in nature, is to…
To dynamically traverse challenging terrain, legged robots need to continually perceive and reason about upcoming features, adjust the locations and timings of future footfalls and leverage momentum strategically. We present a pipeline that…
Walking animals, like stick insects, cockroaches or ants, demonstrate a fascinating range of locomotive abilities and complex behaviors. The locomotive behaviors can consist of a variety of walking patterns along with adaptation that allow…
Insects have tiny brains but complicated visual systems for motion perception. A handful of insect visual neurons have been computationally modeled and successfully applied for robotics. How different neurons collaborate on motion…
The design of gaits for robot locomotion can be a daunting process which requires significant expert knowledge and engineering. This process is even more challenging for robots that do not have an accurate physical model, such as compliant…
The localization of moving robots depends on the availability of good features from the environment. Sensor systems like Lidar are popular, but unique features can also be extracted from images of the ground. This work presents the Keypoint…
Robotic spacecraft have helped expand our reach for many planetary exploration missions. Most ground mobile planetary exploration robots use wheeled or modified wheeled platforms. Although extraordinarily successful at completing intended…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…
As mobile robots become useful performing everyday tasks in complex real-world environments, they must be able to traverse a range of difficult terrain types such as stairs, stepping stones, gaps, jumps and narrow passages. This work…
Traversing terrains with sparse footholds like legged animals presents a promising yet challenging task for quadruped robots, as it requires precise environmental perception and agile control to secure safe foot placement while maintaining…
High resolution tactile sensing has great potential in autonomous mobile robotics, particularly for legged robots. One particular area where it has significant promise is the traversal of challenging, varied terrain. Depending on whether an…
We present Oncilla robot, a novel mobile, quadruped legged locomotion machine. This large-cat sized, 5.1 robot is one of a kind of a recent, bioinspired legged robot class designed with the capability of model-free locomotion control.…
Legged robots have unparalleled mobility on unstructured terrains. However, it remains an open challenge to design locomotion controllers that can operate in a large variety of environments. In this paper, we address this challenge of…
Multimodal locomotion is crucial for an animal's adaptability in unstructured wild environments. Similarly, in the human gastrointestinal tract, characterized by viscoelastic mucus, complex rugae, and narrow sphincters like the cardia,…
The ability to modify morphology in response to environmental changes represents a highly advantageous feature in biological organisms, facilitating their adaptation to diverse environmental conditions. While some robots have the capability…
Adaptive morphogenetic robots adapt their morphology and control policies to meet changing tasks and environmental conditions. Many such systems leverage soft components, which enable shape morphing but also introduce simulation and control…
This work introduces a hierarchical strategy for terrain-aware bipedal locomotion that integrates reduced-dimensional perceptual representations to enhance reinforcement learning (RL)-based high-level (HL) policies for real-time gait…
An alternative data-driven modeling approach has been proposed and employed to gain fundamental insights into robot motion interaction with granular terrain at certain length scales. The approach is based on an integration of dimension…