Controlling contact forces during interactions is critical for locomotion and manipulation tasks. While sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) has succeeded in many contact-rich problems, current RL methods achieve forceful interactions implicitly without explicitly regulating forces. We propose a method for training RL policies for direct force control without requiring access to force sensing. We showcase our method on a whole-body control platform of a quadruped robot with an arm. Such force control enables us to perform gravity compensation and impedance control, unlocking compliant whole-body manipulation. The learned whole-body controller with variable compliance makes it intuitive for humans to teleoperate the robot by only commanding the manipulator, and the robot's body adjusts automatically to achieve the desired position and force. Consequently, a human teleoperator can easily demonstrate a wide variety of loco-manipulation tasks. To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first deployment of learned whole-body force control in legged manipulators, paving the way for more versatile and adaptable legged robots.

我们提出了一种无需力传感器训练的强化学习策略来实现直接力控制，展示了在四足机器人整体控制平台上通过变化的整体柔顺度实现的重力补偿和阻抗控制，使得人类通过操纵器件即可直观地远程操作机器人，从而实现多样化的运动与操纵任务，为四足机器人提供了学习整体力控制的首次实际部署，为更具多功能和适应性的四足机器人铺平了道路。

学习用于腿式操纵的力控制