Quadruped Robots for Challenging Tasks on Unstructured Terrains

Legged Robots are expected to assist and replace human operators in dangerous and dirty tasks in unstructured environments. As demonstrated by legged animals and humans, legs are ideal for moving over very rough terrain, where wheeled and tracked vehicles cannot go. To build versatile legged machines, it is crucial to combine high-performance hardware with intelligent locomotion control, planning and perception. In this presentation, I will give an overview of the quadruped robot research conducted at IIT’s Dynamic Legged Systems lab. First, I will present the development of the HyQ, HyQ2Max and HyQReal quadruped robots. Next, I will give an overview of our developed locomotion algorithms and software framework that allows our robots to cope with highly irregular terrain, including rocks, stairs, gaps, ramps, stepping stones, etc. Last, I will introduce our recent work on quadrupedal manipulation, tele-operation and a look into future applications.

Biography: Dr. Claudio Semini (MSc 2005, PhD 2010) is the head of the Dynamic Legged Systems (DLS) lab at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) that developed a number of high-performance hydraulic robots, including HyQ, HyQ2Max, and HyQReal. He holds an MSc degree from ETH Zurich in electrical engineering and information technology. He spent 2 years in Tokyo for his research: MSc thesis at the Hirose Lab at Tokyo Tech and staff engineer at the Toshiba R&D center in Kawasaki working on mobile service robotics. During his PhD and subsequent PostDoc at IIT, he developed the quadruped robot HyQ and worked on its control. Since 2012 he leads the DLS lab. Claudio Semini is the author and co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and conferences. He is also a co-founder of the Technical Committee on Mechanisms and Design of the IEEE-RAS Society. He is/was the coordinator/partner of several EU-, National and Industrial projects (including HyQ-REAL, INAIL Teleop, Moog@IIT joint lab, etc). His research interests include the construction and control of highly dynamic and versatile legged robots for field application in real-world operations, locomotion, hydraulic drives, and others.

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