Related papers: Dynamics Aware Quadrupedal Locomotion via Intrinsi…

The ability to accurately predict human behavior is central to the safety and efficiency of robot autonomy in interactive settings. Unfortunately, robots often lack access to key information on which these predictions may hinge, such as…

It is well-known that inverse dynamics models can improve tracking performance in robot control. These models need to precisely capture the robot dynamics, which consist of well-understood components, e.g., rigid body dynamics, and effects…

Efficient skill acquisition, representation, and on-line adaptation to different scenarios has become of fundamental importance for assistive robotic applications. In the past decade, dynamical systems (DS) have arisen as a flexible and…

In this paper, with a view toward fast deployment of locomotion gaits in low-cost hardware, we use a linear policy for realizing end-foot trajectories in the quadruped robot, Stoch $2$. In particular, the parameters of the end-foot…

Developing agile behaviors for legged robots remains a challenging problem. While deep reinforcement learning is a promising approach, learning truly agile behaviors typically requires tedious reward shaping and careful curriculum design.…

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…

We propose a robust dynamic walking controller consisting of a dynamic locomotion planner, a reinforcement learning process for robustness, and a novel whole-body locomotion controller (WBLC). Previous approaches specify either the position…

We present a model-based framework for robot locomotion that achieves walking based on only 4.5 minutes (45,000 control steps) of data collected on a quadruped robot. To accurately model the robot's dynamics over a long horizon, we…

This paper presents an active learning strategy for robotic systems that takes into account task information, enables fast learning, and allows control to be readily synthesized by taking advantage of the Koopman operator representation. We…

Real-world applications require a robot operating in the physical world with awareness of potential risks besides accomplishing the task. A large part of risky behaviors arises from interacting with objects in ignorance of affordance. To…

This paper presents a comprehensive study on using deep reinforcement learning (RL) to create dynamic locomotion controllers for bipedal robots. Going beyond focusing on a single locomotion skill, we develop a general control solution that…

Quadruped robots are often designed with rigid feet to simplify control and maintain stable contact during locomotion. While this approach is straightforward, it limits the ability of the legs to absorb impact forces and reuse stored…

In this work, we provide a simulation framework to perform systematic studies on the effects of spinal joint compliance and actuation on bounding performance of a 16-DOF quadruped spined robot Stoch 2. Fast quadrupedal locomotion with…

At an early age, human infants are able to learn and build a model of the world very quickly by constantly observing and interacting with objects around them. One of the most fundamental intuitions human infants acquire is intuitive…

This paper documents a case study in agent-driven autonomous reinforcement learning research for quadruped locomotion. The setting was not a fully self-starting research system. A human provided high-level directives through an agentic…

Dynamic control of a soft-body robot to deliver complex behaviors with low-dimensional actuation inputs is challenging. In this paper, we present a computational approach to automatically generate versatile, underactuated control policies…

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…

The process of robot design is a complex task and the majority of design decisions are still based on human intuition or tedious manual tuning. A more informed way of facing this task is computational design methods where design parameters…

We present a framework for learning visually-guided quadruped locomotion by integrating exteroceptive sensing and central pattern generators (CPGs), i.e. systems of coupled oscillators, into the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework.…

We present a new approach for transfer of dynamic robot control policies such as biped locomotion from simulation to real hardware. Key to our approach is to perform system identification of the model parameters {\mu} of the hardware (e.g.…