Robot Locomotion And Navigation Dynamics (RoboLAND)
Generating desired movements from undesired environments
Welcome
Animals -- lizards, snakes, insects -- often exhibit novel strategies in effectively interacting with their physical environments and generating desired responses for locomotion. In our lab, we are interested in creating robots that can do the same.
Our approach integrates engineering, physics, and biology to discover the general principles governing the interactions between bio-inspired robots and their locomotion environments. For example, how do legged animals and robots use solid-like and fluid-like responses from soft sand and mud to produce effective movement? How can insect-like and snake-like robots take advantage of obstacle collisions to navigate within cluttered environments?
We use these principles to create novel sensing and control strategies that can allow robots to perceive and intelligently elicit environment responses to achieve desired motion, even from traditional-considered "undesired" environments such as flowing sand, yielding mud, and cluttered obstacle fields.
News
2023/9/12: Congratulations to RoboLAND undergrad researcher, Ethan Fulcher, for receiving the 2023 Provost's Research Fellowship!
2023/8/12: Team LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) successfully completed the field testing at Mt Hood, OR! USC team (Ethan Fulcher, John Bush, Shipeng Liu, Yifeng Zhang, Feifei Qian) and collaborators successfully tested sensing and locomotion of legged robots on icy regolith and snow/ice patches at the field site! Excellent job team!
2023/7/26: RoboLAND researchers and robots enjoyed a beach day at Manhattan beach! See robot testing video from previous trips on Viterbi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CumhUe6rW6W/?img_index=1
2023/6/24: John Bush (RoboLAND undergrad)'s presentation “Robotic Legs as Novel Planetary Instrumentation to Explore the Mechanical Properties of Regolith" was selected to receive the Honorable Mention for the Stephen E. Dwornik Planetary Geoscience Undergraduate Poster Presentation Award at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Congratulations John!
2023/5/10: Prof. Qian received the NSF CAREER award, titled "CAREER: Utilizing Physical Interactions to Improve Legged Mobility on Challenging Terrains". This work seeks to develop methods that can enable robots to actively "harvest" environment interaction forces to produce agile movements in natural, complex environments.
2023/3/13: Team LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) completed the 1st field testing at White Sands, NM! USC team (John Bush, Ethan Fulcher, Shipeng Liu, Yifeng Zhang, Feifei Qian) and UPenn collaborator (J. Diego Caporale) successfully tested sensing and locomotion of quadrupedal robots and direct-drive robotic legs at the field site! Excellent job team!
2023/3/9: Xingjue Liao, Haodi Hu, and Boyuan Huang presented their exciting research at APS Robophysics!
2022/8/1: Project LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) led by Prof. Qian is awarded $3-million grant from NASA!