24 accepted papers
We propose a contact-explicit hierarchical architecture coupling Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Model Predictive Control (MPC), where a high-level RL agent provides gait and navigation commands to a low-level locomotion MPC. This off loads the combinatorial burden of contact timing from the MPC by
Enabling humanoid robots to perform autonomously loco-manipulation in unstructured environments is crucial and highly challenging for achieving embodied intelligence. This involves robots being able to plan their actions and behaviors in long-horizon tasks while using multi-modality to perceive devi…
Modular reconfigurable manipulators enable quick adaptation and versatility to address different application environments and tailor to the specific requirements of the tasks. Task performance significantly depends on the manipulator’s mounted pose and morphology design, therefore posing the need of…
This work presents the computational design and validation of the Multi-Arm Relocatable Manipulator (MARM), a three-limb robot for space applications, with particular reference to the MIRROR (i.e., the Multi-arm Installation Robot for Readying ORUs and Reflectors) use-case scenario as proposed by th…
Teleoperation permits to control robots from a safe distance while performing tasks in a remote environment. Kinematic differences between the input device and the remotely controlled manipulator or the existence of redundancy in the remote robot may pose challenges in moving intuitively the remote
The kinematic features of a centaur-type humanoid platform, combined with a powerful actuation, enable the experimentation of a variety of agile and dynamic motions. However, the higher number of degrees-of-freedom and the increased weight of the system, compared to the bipedal and quadrupedal count…
This paper presents a reactive legged locomotion generation scheme that enables our quadruped robot CEN-TAURO to adapt to varying payloads while walking. The center-of-mass (CoM) trajectories are generated in real time in a model predictive control (MPC) fashion, trading off large stability margins…
Envisioning the employment of rope-assisted humanoid robots to reduce human intervention for operations in the heights, this preliminary work addresses the modeling and motion planning problems for a rope-assisted bipedal robot. The mathematical features of this system outnumber the ones of typical…
This paper presents a framework providing a full pipeline to execute a complex physical interaction behaviour of a humanoid bipedal robot, both from a theoretical and a practical standpoint. Building from a multi-contact control architecture that combines contact planning and reactive force distribu…
In humanoid robotic platforms, classical inverse kinematics algorithms, based on L2-regularization of joint velocities or accelerations, tends to engage the motion of all the available degrees of freedom, resulting in movements of the whole robot structure, which are inherently not sparse. The role
This work deals with the kinematic control of Centauro, a highly redundant, hybrid wheeled-legged robot designed at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). Given its full wheeled mobility as allowed by its four independently steerable wheels, the choice of some local frame (in addition to the global
Performing a demanding manipulation task with a multi-legged loco-manipulation platform may require the exploitation of multiple external contacts with different environment surfaces for counteracting the manipulation forces. This is the case of the pushing task of a heavy object, where the grip for
Human Robot interaction is a fundamental perquisite for any robot performing a physical task in collaboration with a human. The presence of disturbances arising from the partially known tasks payloads, the unexpected interaction forces in general, and the uncertainty in the interpretation of the hum…
Despite the development of a large number of mobile manipulation robots, very few platforms can demonstrate the required strength and mechanical sturdiness to accommodate the needs of real-world applications with high payload and moderate/harsh physical interaction demands, e.g., in disaster-respons
This work introduces a framework for the Cartesian control of multi-legged, highly redundant robots. The proposed framework allows the untrained user to perform complex motion tasks with robotics platforms by leveraging a simple, auto-generated ROS-based interface. Contrary to other motion control f…
Multi-legged humanoid platforms present an inherent redundancy in the number of end-effectors required to perform interaction tasks, such as balancing and manipulation. The most relevant possibility opened up by end-effector redundancy consists in using a subset of the available end-effectors to per
In this paper we propose a novel hybrid walking pattern generator which combines results from the virtual constraints and the preview control theories for bipedal locomotion. This choice is motivated by findings in biomechanics that show how the dynamic motion of the human walk is mainly generated b…
Hybrid legged-wheeled robots are able to adapt their leg configuration and height to vary their footprint polygons and go over obstacles or traverse narrow spaces. In this paper, we present a variable configuration wheeled motion planner based on the A* algorithm. It takes advantage of the agility o…
This paper proposes the implementation of an impedance controller on the ankle level of COMAN+, a robot with parallel kinematics ankles actuated by a dual four-bar mechanism. The main contribution of the work is a realization of said control scheme that grants a less abrupt and safer robot response…
This work presents a new attitude balancing strategy implemented and validated on a quadrupedal robot equipped with a custom hybrid wheel-legged mobility system. The proposed method uses an inverse kinematics solution scheme based on Quadratic Programming optimization to generate full body motions t…
Robotics teleoperation has been extensively studied and considered in the past in several task scenarios where direct human intervention is not possible due to the hazardous environments. In such applications, both communication degradation and reduced perception of the remote environment are practi…
In this work we introduced a prioritized Cartesian impedance control under the framework of the Quadratic Programming (QP) optimization. In particular, we present a formulation which is simpler than full inverse dynamics, avoids any matrix pseudo-inversion, inverse kinematics computation and conside…
The present work addresses the generation of a walking gait with automatic footstep placement for a quadrupedal robot, within a Linear Model Predictive Control framework. Existing work has shown how this is only possible within a non-convex programming framework, finding a solution of which is well-…
Developing a high physical performance robotic manipulation platform with considerable power density, strength and resilience is not a trivial task and frequently leads to heavy and bulky systems unable to meet the application requirements, i.e. such robots should have human body size compatibility…