robotics
The Biped Uses Thrusters to Keep Its Trot
Harpy's controller allocates ground force and active thrust at 500 hertz while solving each optimization inside a two-millisecond budget.
Summary
Harpy's controller allocates ground force and active thrust at 500 hertz while solving each optimization inside a two-millisecond budget.
Inspired by birds that use wing thrust during locomotion, researchers implemented thrust-assisted trotting on the Harpy robot. Its quadratic-program controller regulated contact and thrust at 500 hertz; reported solves took 0.18 milliseconds. In two low-speed experiments, mean velocity tracked its reference and joint error stayed within one degree. The trials are limited, but they demonstrate the controller on hardware.
Why it matters
Harpy's controller allocates ground force and active thrust at 500 hertz while solving each optimization inside a two-millisecond budget.
Limits and context
No additional limitation was separately recorded.
Key claims
Harpy's controller allocates ground force and active thrust at 500 hertz while solving each optimization inside a two-millisecond budget.
Evidence: source-2026-10-20-018
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2610.26810, original v1arXiv · primary research
Corrections
No corrections have been recorded for this story.