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  4. ManyQuadrupeds: Learning a Single Locomotion Policy for Diverse Quadruped Robots
 
conference paper

ManyQuadrupeds: Learning a Single Locomotion Policy for Diverse Quadruped Robots

Shafiee, Milad  
•
Bellegarda, Guillaume  
•
Ijspeert, Auke  
2024
Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

Learning a locomotion policy for quadruped robots has traditionally been constrained to a specific robot morphology, mass, and size. The learning process must usually be repeated for every new robot, where hyperparameters and reward function weights must be re-tuned to maximize performance for each new system. Alternatively, attempting to train a single policy to accommodate different robot sizes, while maintaining the same degrees of freedom (DoF) and morphology, requires either complex learning frameworks, or mass, inertia, and dimension randomization, which leads to prolonged training periods. In our study, we show that drawing inspiration from animal motor control allows us to effectively train a single locomotion policy capable of controlling a diverse range of quadruped robots. The robot differences encompass: a variable number of DoFs, (i.e. 12 or 16 joints), three distinct morphologies, a broad mass range spanning from 2 kg to 200 kg, and nominal standing heights ranging from 18 cm to 100 cm. Our policy modulates a representation of the Central Pattern Generator (CPG) in the spinal cord, effectively coordinating both frequencies and amplitudes of the CPG to produce rhythmic output (Rhythm Generation), which is then mapped to a Pattern Formation (PF) layer. Across different robots, the only varying component is the PF layer, which adjusts the scaling parameters for the stride height and length. Subsequently, we evaluate the sim-to-real transfer by testing the single policy on both the Unitree Go1 and A1 robots. Remarkably, we observe robust performance, even when adding a 15 kg load, equivalent to 125% of the A1 robot's nominal mass.

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Type
conference paper
DOI
10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610155
Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85190621051

Author(s)
Shafiee, Milad  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Bellegarda, Guillaume  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Ijspeert, Auke  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Date Issued

2024

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Published in
Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
ISBN of the book

9798350384574

Start page

3471

End page

3477

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
BIOROB  
Event nameEvent acronymEvent placeEvent date
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

Yokohama, Japan

2024-05-13 - 2024-05-17

FunderFunding(s)Grant NumberGrant URL

Swiss National Science Foundation

197237

Available on Infoscience
January 26, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/245069
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