Related papers: Natural Locomotion: Principle and Method
Quadruped animals are capable of exhibiting a diverse range of locomotion gaits. While progress has been made in demonstrating such gaits on robots, current methods rely on motion priors, dynamics models, or other forms of extensive manual…
Locomotion robots with active or passive compliance can show robustness to uncertain scenarios, which can be promising for agricultural, research and environmental industries. However, state estimation for these robots is challenging due to…
Contact-based decision and planning methods are becoming increasingly important to endow higher levels of autonomy for legged robots. Formal synthesis methods derived from symbolic systems have great potential for reasoning about high-level…
We consider the dynamics of a translocation process of a flexible linear polymer through a nanopore into an environment of active rods in the {\it trans} side. Using Langevin dynamics simulations we find that the rods facilitate…
Faced with strong demand for robots working in underwater pipeline environments, a novel underwater multi-model locomotion robot is designed and studied in this research. By mimicking the earthworm's metameric body, the robot is segmented…
A finite (periodic) FPU chain is chosen as a convenient point for investigating the energy exchange phenomenon in nonlinear oscillatory systems. As we have recently shown, this phenomenon may occur as a consequence of the resonant…
Continuum soft robots are nonlinear mechanical systems with theoretically infinite degrees of freedom (DoFs) that exhibit complex behaviors. Achieving motor intelligence under dynamic conditions necessitates the development of…
What are the fundamental limitations for finite-time engines that extract work from active nonequilibrium systems, and what are the optimal protocols that approach them? We show that the finite-time work extraction for nonconservative…
We have developed an experimental setup of very simple self-propelled robots to observe collective motion emerging as a result of inelastic collisions only. A circular pool and commercial RC boats were the basis of our first setup, where we…
Driven particles in presence of crowded environment, obstacles or kinetic constraints often exhibit negative differential mobility (NDM) due to their decreased dynamical activity. We propose a new mechanism for complex many-particle systems…
Open-loop stable limit cycles are foundational to legged robotics, providing inherent self-stabilization that minimizes the need for computationally intensive feedback-based gait correction. While previous methods have primarily targeted…
Enabling humanoid robots to achieve natural and dynamic locomotion across a wide range of speeds, including smooth transitions from walking to running, presents a significant challenge. Existing deep reinforcement learning methods typically…
We propose and analyze a mathematical model of cargo transport by non-processive molecular motors. In our model, the motors change states by random discrete events (corresponding to stepping and binding/unbinding), while the cargo position…
Motor thermal management is often overlooked in the context of electrically-actuated robots, particularly legged robots, but motor overheating is a key factor that limits long-duration locomotion especially under payload conditions. This…
Spring-based actuators in legged locomotion provide energy-efficiency and improved performance, but increase the difficulty of controller design. While previous work has focused on extensive modeling and simulation to find optimal…
Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of wheeled robots when driving on suitably flat surfaces and versatility of legged robots when stepping over or around obstacles. This paper introduces a planning and control framework to realise…
LIPM is everywhere in legged-locomotion control, but almost always as a modeling choice rather than as something the controller's cost actually prefers. This note tries to make that link more explicit. Working from a small centroidal OCP…
Locomotion may be induced on three levels. On a classical level, actuators and limbs follow the sequence of open-loop top-down control signals they receive. Limbs may move alternatively on their own, which implies that interlimb…
Typical man-made locomotive devices use reversible gears, as cranks, for transforming reciprocating motion into directed one. Such gears are holonomic and have the transduction efficiency of unity. On the other hand, a typical gear of…
Legged robots must achieve both robust locomotion and energy efficiency to be practical in real-world environments. Yet controllers trained in simulation often fail to transfer reliably, and most existing approaches neglect…