The feet of robots are typically used to design locomotion strategies, such as balancing, walking, and running. However, they also have great potential to perform manipulation tasks. In this paper, we propose a model predictive control (MPC) framework for a quadrupedal robot to dynamically balance on a ball and simultaneously manipulate it to follow various trajectories such as straight lines, sinusoids, circles and in-place turning. We numerically validate our controller on the Mini Cheetah robot using different gaits including trotting, bounding, and pronking on the ball.
X2-N: A Transformable Wheel-legged Humanoid Robot with Dual-mode Locomotion and Manipulation
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港理工大学电子与计算机工程系）；X-lab Department, Agibot Innovation Company（阿吉博创新公司X实验室）
Adaptive-MHE : A Sampling-Based Adaptive MPC for Legged Loco-Manipulation via Moving Horizon Estimation
University of Calgary（卡尔加里大学）；Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Technical University of Munich (TUM)（慕尼黑工业大学机器人与机器智能研究所（MIRMI））
KYON: Semi-Modular Wheel-Legged Quadruped With Agile Bimanual Capability
Humanoids and Human Centered Mechatronics, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia（人机一体化机械系统，意大利理工研究院）；Advanced Robotics Facility, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia（先进机器人设施，意大利理工研究院）
RoboDuet: Learning a Cooperative Policy for Whole-body Legged Loco-Manipulation
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；University of San Diego（圣地亚哥大学）；Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory（上海人工智能实验室）；Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University（清华大学交叉信息研究院）；Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute（上海期智研究院）；Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School（清华大学深圳国际研究生院）；Jianghuai Advance Technology Center（江淮先进技术中心）
Whole-Body Inverse Dynamics MPC for Legged Loco-Manipulation
Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich（机械与过程工程系，苏黎世联邦理工学院）；Computational Robotics Lab, Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich（计算机器人实验室，计算机科学系，苏黎世联邦理工学院）
Dynamic Quadrupedal Legged and Aerial Locomotion via Structure Repurposing
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University（电气与计算机工程系，东北大学）；Department of Aerospace Engineering, California Institute of Technology（航空航天工程系，加州理工学院）
Quadratic Programming-Based Posture Manipulation and Thrust-vectoring for Agile Dynamic Walking on Narrow Pathways
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University（电子与计算机工程系，东北大学）；Department of Aerospace Engineering, California Institute of Technology（航空航天工程系，加州理工学院）
Towards Standardized Disturbance Rejection Testing of Legged Robot Locomotion with Linear Impactor: A Preliminary Study, Observations, and Implications
Iowa State University（爱荷华州立大学）；The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学）
RAMBO: RL-Augmented Model-Based Whole-Body Control for Loco-Manipulation
Computational Robotics Lab in the Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院计算机科学系计算机器人实验室）；Robotics Institute and the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学机器人研究所和计算机科学学院）
A Nonlinear MPC Framework for Loco-Manipulation of Quadrupedal Robots with Non-Negligible Manipulator Dynamics
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech（弗吉尼亚理工大学机械工程系）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；School of Neuroscience, Virginia Tech（弗吉尼亚理工大学神经科学学院）
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）
Arm-Constrained Curriculum Learning for Loco-Manipulation of the Wheel-Legged Robot
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州））；Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), Tsinghua University（清华大学人工智能产业研究院）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Harbin Institute of Technology（哈尔滨工业大学）；Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University（西交利物浦大学）
A Transferable Legged Mobile Manipulation Framework Based on Disturbance Predictive Control
Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院沈阳自动化研究所）；Institutes for Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院机器人与智能制造创新研究院）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Westlake University（西湖大学）
Whole-Body Model-Predictive Control of Legged Robots with MuJoCo
Department Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（航空宇航与工程力学系，麻省理工学院）；Google DeepMind（谷歌DeepMind）；Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University（电气与计算机工程系，卡内基梅隆大学）；Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University（机器人研究所，卡内基梅隆大学）
Learning a Unified Policy for Position and Force Control in Legged Loco-Manipulation
State Key Laboratory of General Artificial Intelligence, BIGAI（一般人工智能国家重点实验室，BIGAI）；Joint Laboratory of Embodied AI and Humanoid Robots, BIGAI & UniTree Robotics（具身人工智能与仿人机器人联合实验室，BIGAI与UniTree机器人）；Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications（北京邮电大学）
