Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of the Mars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they need to carry sophisticated instruments and science laboratories. We propose the development of low-cost planetary rovers that are the size and shape of cantaloupes and that can be deployed from a larger rover. The rover named SphereX is 2 kg in mass, is spherical, holonomic and contains a hopping mechanism to jump over rugged terrain. A small low-cost rover complements a larger rover, particularly to traverse rugged terrain or roll down a canyon, cliff or crater to obtain images and science data. While it may be a one-way journey for these small robots, they could be used tactically to obtain high-reward science data. The robot is equipped with a pair of stereo cameras to perform visual navigation and has room for a science payload. In this paper, we analyze the design and development of a laboratory prototype. The results show a promising pathway towards development of a field system.
Dynamic Legged Ball Manipulation on Rugged Terrains with Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning
Department of Automation, Tsinghua University（清华大学自动化系）；School of Computer Science, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学计算机科学学院）；Faculty of Robot Science and Engineering, Northeastern University（东北大学机器人科学与工程学院）
QuasiNav: Asymmetric Cost-Aware Navigation Planning with Constrained Quasimetric Reinforcement Learning
University of Maryland, Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩分校）；Amazon Inc.（亚马逊公司）；DEVCOM Army Research Lab（DEVCOM陆军研究实验室）；Stormfish Scientific Corporation（斯托姆菲什科学公司）
TAIL: A Terrain-Aware Multi-Modal SLAM Dataset for Robot Locomotion in Deformable Granular Environments
Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)（南方科技大学）；Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robotics and Intelligent Systems（深圳市仿生机器人与智能系统重点实验室）；Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Human-Augmentation and Rehabilitation Robotics in Universities（广东省高校人机增强与康复机器人重点实验室）
Probabilistic approach to feedback control enhances multi-legged locomotion on rugged landscapes
Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines（机器人与智能机器研究所）；Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院）；School of Physic（物理学院）；School of Mechanical Engineering（机械工程学院）
Learning to enhance multi-legged robot on rugged landscapes
Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院机器人与智能机器研究所）；School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院物理学院）；School of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院计算学院）
TAGA: Terrain-aware Active Gaze Learning for Generalizable Agile Humanoid Locomotion
MarmotLab, National University of Singapore（马尔莫实验室，新加坡国立大学）；Center of X-Mechanics, Zhejiang University（浙大X力学中心）；South China University of Technology（华南理工大学）
Terrain Traversal Without Motion Priors: Expert-Routed Humanoid Locomotion at Deployment Fidelity
VinRobotics（维诺机器人公司）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)（德国人工智能研究中心）；University of Stuttgart（斯图加特大学）；International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS)（国际马克斯·普朗克智能系统研究院）；Center for AI Research (CAIR), VinUniversity（VinUniversity人工智能研究中心）；Intelligent Autonomous Systems, TU Darmstadt（达姆施塔特工业大学智能自主系统研究所）
PGTT: Phase-Guided Terrain Traversal for Perceptive Legged Locomotion
Laboratory of Automation and Robotics (LAR) in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Patras（自动化与机器人实验室（LAR）（电气与计算机工程系，帕特拉斯大学））；Archimedes/Athena RC, Greece（阿基米德/雅典娜RC，希腊）；Athena - Research and Innovation Center in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies, Xanthi, Greece（雅典娜信息、通信和知识技术研究中心（Xanthi，希腊））；Computational Intelligence Laboratory (CILab), Department of Mathematics, University of Patras（计算智能实验室（CILab）（数学系，帕特拉斯大学））
MRS-CWC: A Weakly Constrained Multi-Robot System with Controllable Constraint Stiffness for Mobility and Navigation in Unknown 3D Rough Environments
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；University of Hyogo（兵库县立大学）；Osaka University（大阪大学）；Tokyo College, Institute for Advanced Studies, The University of Tokyo（东京大学东京高等研究院）
CReF: Cross-modal and Recurrent Fusion for Depth-conditioned Humanoid Locomotion
Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University（浙江大学控制科学与工程学院）；School of Control Science and Engineering, Shandong University（山东大学控制科学与工程学院）
TRAIN: Terrain-Aware Interactive Navigation for Quadruped Robots via Reinforcement Learning
Department of Robotics, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University（东邦大学机器人学系）；Laboratory for Intelligent Decision and Autonomous Robots, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology（佐治亚理工学院智能决策与自主机器人实验室）
