Leveraging Affordances for Accelerating Online RL
Abstract: The inability to explore environments efficiently makes online RL sample-inefficient. Most existing works tackle this problem in a setting devoid of prior information. However, additional affordances may often be cheaply available at the time of training. These affordances include small quantities of demo data, simulators that can reset to arbitrary states and domain specific [...]
Dynamic Route Guidance in Vehicle Networks by Simulating Future Traffic Patterns
Abstract: Roadway congestion leads to wasted time and money and environmental damage. One possible solution is adding more roadway capacity, but this can be impractical especially in urban environments and still may not make up for a poorly-calibrated traffic signal schedule. As such, it is becoming increasingly important to use existing road networks more efficiently. [...]
Safe, Robust and Adaptive Model Learning for Agile Robots: Autonomous Racing
Abstract: In recent years there has been a rapid development in agile robots capable of operating at their limits in dynamic environments. Autonomous racing and recent developments in it also spurred by competitions such as the Indy Autonomous Challenge, A2RL, and F1Tenth have shown how modern autonomous control algorithms are capable of operating racecars at [...]
Improving Lego Assembly with Vibro-Tactile Feedback
Abstract: Robotic manipulation is an important area of research to improve the level of efficiency and autonomy in manufacturing processes. Due to the high precision and repeatability of industrial robot arms, robotic manufacturing tasks are dominated by simple pick, place, and peg insertion actions performed in a highly structured environment. Lego blocks are an excellent [...]
DeltaWalker: A Soft, Linearly Actuated Delta Quadruped Robot
Abstract: Quadruped robots offer a versatile solution for navigating complex terrain, making them valuable for applications such as industrial automation or search and rescue. Although quadrupeds are more complex than bipeds, they are easier to balance and control and require fewer joints to actuate compared to hexapods. Traditional quadruped designs, however, often feature complex leg [...]
Propagative Distance Optimization for Constrained Inverse Kinematics
Abstract: This work investigates a constrained inverse kinematic (IK) problem that seeks a feasible configuration of an articulated robot under various constraints such as joint limits and obstacle collision avoidance. Due to the high-dimensionality and complex constraints, this problem is often solved numerically via iterative local optimization. Classic local optimization methods take joint angles as [...]
Advancing Legged Robot Agility: from Video Imitation to GPU Acceleration
Abstract: Achieving human and animal-level agility has been a long-standing goal in robotics research. Recent advancements in numerical optimization and machine learning have pushed legged systems to greater capabilities than ever before, enabling black flips, parkour, and manipulation of heavy objects. Despite these exciting developments, this thesis identifies two key limitations of current legged robot [...]