Legged robots

The course presents the design, control, and applications of legged robots. It gives a review of different types of legged robots (including two-, four- and multi-legged robots) and different control approaches for legged locomotion. A few selected control approaches will be analyzed more in-depth. The course also trains students in making critical analysis of key articles in the field, and in designing their own legged robot models and locomotion controllers in simulation.

Grading: Student presentations of articles 20% of grade, projects 50%, and written exam 30%. Work for the presentations and the projects will be done by groups of 3 students.

Presentations of articles: Students will chose one article among a list of key articles in legged robots. The purpose is to carefully read the article, critically analyze its pros and cons, and present it to the class. The presentation will be graded by the professor and teaching assistants (TAs). The list of articles will soon be provided, and a schedule will be organized after 2-3 weeks. Each student in the 3-person team should participate to the presentation.

Projects: The two projects will be done in Python. The goal will be to control the locomotion of a simulated quadruded robot. The first project will involve developing a model-based controller. The second project will involve using Deep Reinforcement Learning. For both projects, student teams will need to hand in a single scientific report, their programming code, and movies of their results.

Written exam: The exam will cover the theoretical aspects of the course. It will cover material from the lectures (by Auke Ijspeert and guest lecturers), and the student presentations of articles. It will take place during the semester, most likely on December 9 (to be confirmed).

Assistants: Louis.Gevers@epfl.ch and Javier.Pey@epfl.ch (main assistants), Astha.Gupta@epfl.ch,  Chuanfang.Ning@epfl.ch,  Lixuan.Tang@epfl.ch (PhD student teaching assistants) and zhuoran.ren@epfl.ch, advaith.sriram@epfl.ch, alifuat.sahin@epfl.ch, theo.lemonnier@epfl.ch, mehmet.dogan@epfl.ch, as MSc student teaching assistants.

The lectures and practicals will be given in INF2.  Lectures are on Tuesdays from 10:15 to 12:00, and practicals from 13:15 to 15:00.

This first lecture gives a short introduction about the content and organization of the course (including the miniprojects). It also covers the history of legged robots, mechanical design choices, and pros of cons of legged versus wheeled robots. The lecture is given from 10:15 to 12:00. And is followed by the practical session from 13:15 to 15:00.

Overview of gait definitions, pendulum models, stability criteria and different locomotion metrics.

Overview of different control approaches.

Guest lecture by Prof. Marco Hutter on Zoom. Note: his lecture will exceptionally be at 13:15 instead of 10:15, so lectures and practicals are inversed for once.  The lecture will be projected in the normal lecture room INF 2. It would be nice if most of you could be present there, but if you need to connect from elsewhere, here is the zoom link:  https://epfl.zoom.us/j/68887188927?pwd=Tcc1KoSAYibcosgHrPBbqQC4XspUga.1

Auke Ijspeert is at a conference this week. Instead of the lecture in the morning (no need to come from 10:15-12:00), we provide here the recorded lecture of Prof. Sangbae Kim of 2 years ago. Sangbae Kim is famous for his work on the MIT Cheetah robots. That lecture provides interesting insights into the concept of physical intelligence, a type of intelligence that relies strongly on the embodiment and the physical interactions with the environment.

Guest lecture by Dr Guillaume Bellegarda on deep reinforcement learning approaches to locomotion control.

The written exam will take place on Tue Dec 9, 10:15-12:15, in INF 2 (students with last names from A to L) and ODY 016 (students with last names from M to Z).  The seat choice is free, but make sure to come to the right room. Note that the ODY 016 room is on the remote south-east corner of the campus in the Odyssea tower (the old Swisscom tower) next to the new RTS buildings. Make sure to arrive in time! (unfortunately we could not book another room... ). We will open the doors 5 min before (please arrive for 10:10 and wait until we open). Auke Ijspeert will pass from one to the other in case there are questions.

 Normal lab session in the afternoon.