Abstract
Robots often struggle to move through complicated environments from cluttered living spaces to treetop canopies where humans and animals flit with ease. Jumping is an exciting locomotion mode that can enable small ground-based robots to maneuver around large obstacles and gaps in complicated environments. A high-power jumping robot can rapidly traverse obstacles, but the resulting fast and forceful stance phases are challenging for control and estimation. In this talk, I will present my work developing a small monopedal jumping robot, Salto-1P: Saltatorial Locomotion on Terrain Obstacles. Salto-1P achieved superlative jumping performance and demonstrated the first robotic wall jump, extreme-acceleration hopping, precise control to traverse obstacles much larger than the robot’s size, and onboard estimation and control to operate outdoors and execute balanced landings.