Legged Locomotion Reading Group

Brian Acosta will be leading the reading group starting from Fall 2022. Paper reading schedule can be found on his website.
Our paper selections will continue to be added here for the record.

2023 Spring

• Apr 24, "Proprioception and reaction for walking among entanglements", Justin K. Yim, Jiming Ren, David Ologan, Selvin Garcia Gonzalez, and Aaron M. Johnson

• Apr 10, "Convergent iLQR for Safe Trajectory Planning and Control of Legged Robots", James Zhu, J. Joe Payne, Aaron M. Johnson

• Apr 3, "An Input-to-State Stability Perspective on Robust Locomotion", Maegan Tucker and Aaron D. Ames

• Mar 27, "TAMOLS: Terrain-Aware Motion Optimization for Legged Systems", Fabian Jenelten, Ruben Grandia, Farbod Farshidian and Marco Hutter

• Mar 13, "Exploring Kinodynamic Fabrics for Reactive Whole-Body Control of Underactuated Humanoid Robots", Alphonsus Adu-Bredu, Grant Gibson and Jessy Grizzle

• Feb 6, "DreamWaQ: Learning Robust Quadrupedal Locomotion With Implicit Terrain Imagination via Deep Reinforcement Learning", I Made Aswin Nahrendra et al.

• Jan 30, "Temporal Logic Motion Planning with Convex Optimization via Graphs of Convex Sets", Vince Kurtz and Hai Lin. 

2022 Fall

• Nov 14, "ASE: Large-Scale Reusable Adversarial Skill Embeddings for Physically Simulated Characters", Xue Bin Peng, Yunrong Guo, Lina Halper, Sergey Levine, Sanja Fidler

• Nov 7, "Tello Leg: The Study of Design Principles and Metrics for Dynamic Humanoid Robots", Youngwoo Sim and Joao Ramos

• Oct 31, "Angular Center of Mass for Humanoid Robots", Yu-Ming Chen, Gabriel Nelson, Robert Griffin, Michael Posa and Jerry Pratt

• Oct 17, "Learning Low-Frequency Motion Control for Robust and Dynamic Robot Locomotion", Siddhant Gangapurwala, Luigi Campanaro and Ioannis Havoutis

• Oct 10, “Advanced Skills by Learning Locomotion and Local Navigation End-to-End”, Nikita Rudin, David Hoeller, Marko Bjelonic, and Marco Hutter

• Sep 26, “Adaptive Complexity Model Predictive Control”, Joseph Norby, Ardalan Tajbakhsh, Yanhao Yang, and Aaron M. Johnson

2022 Summer

• Aug 15, "Optimizing coordinate choice for locomoting systems", Ross L. Hatton and Howie Choset

• Aug 8, "Convex Optimization of the Full Centroidal Dynamics for Planning in Multi-Contact Scenarios", Gabriel García, Robert Griffin and Jerry Pratt 

• Aug 1, "Minimum perturbation coordinates on SO(3)", Matthew Travers, Ross Hatton and Howie Choset

• July 25, "Optimizing Bipedal Maneuvers of Single Rigid-Body Models for Reinforcement Learning", Ryan Batke et al.

• July 11, "Toward a Data-Driven Template Model for Quadrupedal Locomotion", Randall T. Fawcett; Kereshmeh Afsari; Aaron D. Ames; Kaveh Akbari Hamed

• June 27, "Online learning of centroidal angular momentum towards enhancing DCM-based locomotion", Robert Schuller et al.

• June 20, "Optimal Control of a Differentially Flat Two-Dimensional Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum Model", Hua Chen, Patrick M. Wensing, and Wei Zhang

• June 6, "Robust Predictive Control for Quadrupedal Locomotion: Learning to Close the Gap Between Reduced- and Full-Order Models", Abhishek Pandala et al.

• May 16, "Rapid Locomotion via Reinforcement Learning", Gabriel B. Margolis, Ge Yang, Kartik Paigwar, Tao Chen, and Pulkit Agrawal

2022 Spring

• May 9, "On Slip Detection for Quadruped Robots", Ylenia Nisticò, Shamel Fahmi, Lucia Pallottino, Claudio Semini and Geoff Fink

• Apr 25, 

  • "Sim-to-Real Learning of Footstep-Constrained Bipedal Dynamic Walking", Helei Duan et al.

  • "Sim-to-Real Learning for Bipedal Locomotion Under Unsensed Dynamic Loads", Jeremy Dao, Kevin Green, Helei Duan, Alan Fern, Jonathan Hurst

• Apr 18, "Reactive Planning and Control of Planar Spring–Mass Running on Rough Terrain", Ömür Arslan and Uluç Saranli

• Apr 11, "Motion Planning for Agile Legged Locomotion using Failure Margin Constraints", Kevin Green, John Warila, Ross L. Hatton, and Jonathan Hurst

• Apr 4, "Whole-body model predictive control with rigid contacts via online switching time optimization",  Sotaro Katayama and Toshiyuki Ohtsuka

• Mar 28, "Teaching Robots to Span the Space of Functional Expressive Motion", Arjun Sripathy, Andreea Bobu, Zhongyu Li, Koushil Sreenath, Daniel S. Brown, and Anca D. Dragan

• Mar 21, "Connecting Gaits in Energetically Conservative Legged Systems", Maximilian Raff, Nelson Rosa Jr. and C. David Remy

• Feb 28, "Reinforcement Learning based Cascade Motion Policy Design for Robust 3D Bipedal Locomotion", Guillermo A. Castillo, Bowen Weng, Wei Zhang and Ayonga Hereid

• Feb 21, "A Survey of Algorithms for Black-Box Safety Validation of Cyber-Physical Systems", Anthony Corso, Robert J. Moss, Mark Koren, Ritchie Lee and Mykel J. Kochenderfer

• Feb 14, "Generating Continuous Motion and Force Plans in Real-Time for Legged Mobile Manipulation", Parker Ewen et al.

• Feb 7,  "MPC-based Locomotion Control of Bipedal Robots with Line-Feet Contact using Centroidal Dynamics", Gabriel García, Robert Griffin and Jerry Pratt

• Jan 31, "Learning robust perceptive locomotion for quadrupedal robots in the wild", Takahiro Miki et al.

• Jan 24, "Test and Evaluation of Quadrupedal Walking Gaits through Sim2Real Gap Quantification", Prithvi Akella, Wyatt Ubellacker, and Aaron D. Ames

• Jan 17, "Quadruped Robot Hopping on Two Legs", Shenggao Li, Hua Chen, Wei Zhang, and Patrick M. Wensing

• Jan 10, "Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolution", Agrim Gupta, Silvio Savarese, Surya Ganguli and Li Fei-Fei 

2021 Fall

• Dec 20, "iLQR for Piecewise-Smooth Hybrid Dynamical Systems", Nathan J. Kong, George Council, and Aaron M. Johnson

• Dec 13, "Running into a Trap: Numerical Design of Task-Optimal Preflex Behaviors for Delayed Disturbance Responses", Johnathan Van Why et al.

• Dec 6, "Rapid and Reliable Trajectory Planning Involving Omnidirectional Jumping of Quadruped Robots", Matthew Chignoli, Savva Morozov, and Sangbae Kim

• Nov 15, "A unified framework for walking and running of bipedal robots", Mahrokh Ghoddousi Boroujeni, Elham Daneshmand, Ludovic Righetti, and Majid Khadiv

• Nov 1, "PD based Robust Quadratic Programs for Robotic Systems", Shishir Kolathaya and Sushant Veer

• Oct 25, 

  • "Online Trajectory Optimization for Dynamic Aerial Motions of a Quadruped Robot", Matthew Chignoli and Sangbae Kim

  • "Real-time Optimal Landing Control of the MIT Mini Cheetah", Se Hwan Jeon, Sangbae Kim, and Donghyun Kim

• Oct 18, "Hybrid Event Shaping to Stabilize Periodic Hybrid Orbits", James Zhu, Nathan J. Kong, George Council, and Aaron M. Johnson

• Oct 11, "Bundled Gradients through Contact via Randomized Smoothing", H.J. Terry Suh, Tao Pang, and Russ Tedrake

• Oct 4, "Mini Cheetah, the Falling Cat: A Case Study in Machine Learning and Trajectory Optimization for Robot Acrobatics", Vince Kurtz, He Li, Patrick M. Wensing, and Hai Lin

• Sep 27, "Online Learning of Unknown Dynamics for Model-Based Controllers in Legged Locomotion", Yu Sun et al.

• Sep 20, "Linear Contact-Implicit Model-Predictive Control", Simon Le Cleac’h, Taylor A. Howell, Mac Schwager, and Zachary Manchester

2021 Summer

• Aug 30, "Verifying Safe Transitions between Dynamic Motion Primitives on Legged Robots", Wyatt Ubellacker, Noel Csomay-Shanklin, Tamas G. Molnar, and Aaron D. Ames

• Aug 16, Policy Gradient Methods (Chapter 13) from Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction by Sutton and Barto 

• Aug 9, "Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms", John Schulman, Filip Wolski, Prafulla Dhariwal, Alec Radford, Oleg Klimov

• Aug 2, "The Salted Kalman Filter: Kalman Filtering on Hybrid Dynamical Systems", Nathan J. Kong, J. Joe Payne, George Council, and Aaron M. Johnson

• Jul 19, "RMA: Rapid Motor Adaptation for Legged Robot", Ashish Kumar, Zipeng Fu, Deepak Pathak and Jitendra Malik

• Jul 12, Avik De's paper (link in Google calendar)

• Jun 21, "Upright human gait did not provide a major mechanical challenge for our ancestors", H.-M. Maus, S.W. Lipfert, M. Gross, J. Rummel & A. Seyfarth 

  • [optional] VPP with SLIP

• Jun 14, "Preference-Based Learning for User-Guided HZD Gait Generation on Bipedal Walking Robots", Maegan Tucker, Noel Csomay-Shanklin, Wen-Loong Ma, Aaron D. Ames

• Jun 7, "Blind Bipedal Stair Traversal via Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning", Jonah Siekmann, Kevin Green, John Warila, Alan Fern, Jonathan Hurst

• May 24, No meeting today due to Penn Symposium on Social Implications of Autonomous Military Systems

  • Recommended reading "Variable Horizon MPC with Swing Foot Dynamics for Bipedal Walking Control", Elham Daneshmand et al.

2021 Spring

• May 10, "The MIT Humanoid Robot: Design, Motion Planning, and Control For Acrobatic Behaviors", Matthew Chignoli, Donghyun Kim, Elijah Stanger-Jones, and Sangbae Kim

• May 3, "Rapid Convex Optimization of Centroidal Dynamics using Block Coordinate Descent", Paarth Shah et al.

• Apr 26, "An Online Learning Approach to Model Predictive Control", Nolan Wagener, Ching-An Cheng, Jacob Sacks, and Byron Boots

• Apr 19, "Coupled Control Lyapunov Functions for Interconnected Systems, With Application to Quadrupedal Locomotion", Wen-Loong Ma et al.

• Apr 12, "Model Hierarchy Predictive Control of Robotic Systems", He Li, Robert J. Frei, Patrick M. Wensing

• Mar 22, "Online Walking Motion Generation with Automatic Foot Step Placement", Andrei Herdt et al.

• Mar 15, "Impact Invariant Control with Applications to Bipedal Locomotion", William Yang and Michael Posa

• Mar 8, "No falls, no resets: Reliable Humanoid Behavior in the DARPA Robotics Challenge", Chris G. Atkeson et al.

• Mar 1, "Learning Robust Hybrid Control Barrier Functions for Uncertain Systems" Alexander Robey, Lars Lindemann, Stephen Tu, and Nikolai Matni

• Feb 22, "Sequential Composition of Dynamically Dexterous Robot Behaviors", R. R. Burridge, A. A. Rizzi, D. E. Koditschek

• Feb 15, "Modeling and Control of Soft Robots Using the Koopman Operator and Model Predictive Control", Daniel Bruder, Brent Gillespie, C. David Remy, Ram Vasudevan

• Feb 8, "The fundamental theorem of dynamical systems", Douglas E. Norton. (Matthew Kvalheim will present Conley’s theorem during the meeting)

• Feb 1 "Sim-to-Real Learning of All Common Bipedal Gaits via Periodic Reward Composition",  Jonah Siekmann, Yesh Godse, Alan Fern, Jonathan Hurst

• Jan 25 "Robotic Task Planning Using a Backchaining Theorem Prover for Multiplicative Exponential First-Order Linear Logic", Sitar Kortik and Uluc Saranli

• Jan 4, 11, 18 "What Is Robotics? Why Do We Need It and How Can We Get It?",  Daniel E. Koditschek

2020 Fall

• Dec 14 "Dynamic Legged Manipulation of a Ball Through Multi-Contact Optimization", Chenyu Yang, Bike Zhang, Jun Zeng, Ayush Agrawal and Koushil Sreenath

• Dec 7 "Global Position Control on Underactuated Bipedal Robots: Step-to-step Dynamics Approximation for Step Planning", Xiaobin Xiong, Jenna Reher and Aaron D. Ames

• Nov 30 "Summary of Human Ankle Mechanical Impedance During Walking", Hyunglae Lee, Elliott J. Rouse, and Hermano Igo Krebs

• Nov 23 "Towards Reactive Control of Transitional Legged Robot Maneuvers", Jeff Duperret and Daniel Koditschek

• Nov 16 

  • "Towards a Passive Adaptive Planar Foot with Ground Orientation and Contact Force Sensing for Legged Robots", Roman Käslin et al.

  • "Soft Foot Sensor Design and Terrain Classification for Dynamic Legged Locomotion", Xiaofeng Guo et al.

• Nov 9 "Footstep Planning for Autonomous Walking Over Rough Terrain", Robert J. Griffin, Georg Wiedebach, Stephen McCrory, Sylvain Bertrand, Inho Lee, and Jerry Pratt

• Nov 2 "Robot Collisions: A Survey on Detection, Isolation, and Identification", Sami Haddadin, Alessandro De Luca, and Alin Albu-Schäffer

• Oct 26 "Proprioceptive Actuator Design in the MIT Cheetah: Impact Mitigation and High-Bandwidth Physical Interaction for Dynamic Legged Robots", Patrick Wensing et al.

• Oct 19 "Analytically-Guided Design of a Tailed Bipedal Hopping Robot", Abdulaziz Shamsah, Avik De and Daniel E. Koditschek

• Oct 12 "A little damping goes a long way: a simulation study of how damping influences task-level stability in running", Steve Heim et al.

• Oct 5 "MPTC – Modular Passive Tracking Controller for stack of tasks based control frameworks", Johannes Englsberger et al.

• Sep 28 "Learning Terrain Dynamics: A Gaussian Process Modeling and Optimal Control Adaptation Framework Applied to Robotic Jumping", Alexander Chang et al.

• Sep 21 "Passivity-based Control of Underactuated Biped Robots within HybridZero Dynamics Approach", Hamid Sadeghian et al.

• Sep 14 "Crocoddyl: An Efficient and Versatile Framework for Multi-Contact Optimal Control", Carlos Mastalli et al.

2020 Summer

• Aug 31 "Formal Connections between Template and Anchor Models via Approximate Simulation", Vince Kurtz, Rafael Rodrigues da Silva, Patrick M. Wensing, and Hai Lin

• Aug 24 "Post-impact adaptive compliance for humanoid falls using predictive control of a reduced model",  Vincent Samy, Stéphane Caron, Karim Bouyarmane, and Abderrahmane Kheddar 

• Aug 17 "Variational-Based Optimal Control of Underactuated Balancing for Dynamic Quadrupeds",  Matthew Chignoli and Patrick M. Wensing  

• Aug 10 "Online Gait Transitions and Disturbance Recovery for Legged Robots via the Feasible Impulse Set", Chiheb Boussema et al.

• Aug 3 "Line Walking and Balancing for Legged Robots with Point Feet", Carlos Gonzalez et al.

• July 27 "Planning robust walking motion on uneven terrain via convex optimization", Hongkai Dai and Russ Tedrake

• July 20 "DCM-based gait generation for walking on moving support surfaces", Johannes Englsberger, George Mesesan, Christian Ott, AlinAlbu-Sch ̈affer

  • Reference: "Three-Dimensional Bipedal Walking Control Based on Divergent Component of Motion", JohannesEnglsberger, ChristianOtt, AlinAlbu-Sch ̈affer

• July 13 "Reinforcement Learning for Safety-Critical Control under Model Uncertainty, using Control Lyapunov Functions and Control Barrier Functions", Jason Choi et al.

• July 6 "Drift-free Roll and Pitch Estimation for High-acceleration Hopping", Justin K. Yim, Eric K. Wang, and Ronald S. Fearing

• Jun 29 Discussion on the talks by Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics

  • "Building Robots to Work in Humans Spaces", Jonathan W. Hurst

  • "Recent Progress on Atlas, the World’s Most Dynamic Humanoid Robot", Scott Kuindersma

Paper recommendation: "Approximate Simulation for Template-Based Whole-Body Control", Vince Kurtz, Patrick M. Wensing, Michael D. Lemmon, and Hai Lin 

• Jun 8 "Safe Adaptive Switching among Dynamical Movement Primitives: Application to 3D Limit-Cycle Walkers", Sushant Veer and Ioannis Poulakakis 

• May 25 "Implementing Regularized Predictive Control for Simultaneous Real-Time Footstep and Ground Reaction Force Optimization", Gerardo Bledt, Sangbae Kim

• May 18 "Structured contact force optimization for kino-dynamic motiongeneration", Alexander Herzog, Stefan Schaal, Ludovic Righetti

2020 Spring

• May 11 "Selecting gaits for economical locomotion of legged robots", Weitao Xi, Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy, C. David Remy

  • [1-page background paper] "Gait and the energetics of locomotion in horses", Donald F. Hoyt and C. Richard Taylor 

• May 4 "Templates and Anchors: Neuromechanical Hypotheses of Legged Locomotion on Land", Robert J. Full and Daniel E. Koditschek

• April 27 "Linear Matrix Inequalities for Physically Consistent Inertial Parameter Identification: A Statistical Perspective on the Mass Distribution", Patrick M. Wensing, Sangbae Kim, and Jean-Jacques E. Slotine 

• April 20 "Contact Model Fusion for Event-Based Locomotion in Unstructured Terrains", Gerardo Bledt, Patrick M. Wensing, Sam Ingersoll, and Sangbae Kim

• April 13 "Highly Dynamic Quadruped Locomotion via Whole-Body Impulse Control and Model Predictive Control", Donghyun Kim, Jared Di Carlo, Benjamin Katz, Gerardo Bledt, and Sangbae Kim

• April 6 "Coupled Control Systems: Periodic Orbit Generation with Application to Quadrupedal Locomotion", Wen-Loong Ma, Noel Csomay-Shanklin and Aaron D. Ames

• March 26 "Leveraging the Template and Anchor Framework for Safe, Online Robotic Gait Design", Jinsun Liu, Pengcheng Zhao, Zhenyu Gan, Matthew Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan