Small (under 20 cm in length) legged robots have higher agility and maneuverability, thus being more capable and safer to operate in cluttered environments when compared to their larger counterparts. They can be comparably fast and inexpensive to manufacture thus allowing deployment in large numbers. As such, they fit well in applications like persistent monitoring in confined spaces. Recent developments on design and control of small legged robots have introduced i) a range of highly capable robots, ii) low-cost and distributable design and fabrication, and iii) control algorithms for robot navigation despite challenges such as reduced control authority and uncertainty. But there are still lingering challenges that must be tackled to fully bring these robots in real-world settings. For example, there is currently lack of clear and unifying methods to produce agile and reliable small legged robots, and of control strategies for reliable controlled operation over unknown and varying terrain.

The workshop will bring together researchers from planning and control, mechanisms and design, and biology to examine the challenges and opportunities surrounding the design and control of small legged robots. We seek to investigate i) how new materials and processes can lead to unified approaches in design and manufacturing of small legged robots in a reliable and cost-efficient manner, and ii) what control approaches can ensure reliable controlled operation of small legged robots in realistic case studies. The goal is to report on state-of-the-art approaches, identify open problems, and devise new principles to meet current challenges for small legged robots.

• Sarah Bergbreiter (University of Maryland)
• Roger Quinn (Case Western Reserve University)
• Yasemin Ozkan Aydin (GaTech)
• Adam Stager (Tric Robotics)
• Jianguo Zhao (Colorado State University)
• Kaushik Jayaram (Harvard)
• Cynthia Sung (UPenn)
• Chen Li (John Hopkins)

Participants are invited to submit abstracts related to key challenges in design and control of small legged robots. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Biological inspiration for design and control of small legged robots
• Novel materials for legged robot design
• Mechanism design
• Soft legged robotics
• Planning and control for multi-legged robots
• Sensing and perception for small robots

We invite submissions in the form of extended abstracts (up to 2 pages) following RSS formatting guidelines. The abstracts will be reviewed by the organizers. Accepted contributions will be featured in a poster session or through spotlight presentations, and will be included in the workshop proceedings which will become available at the workshop website. We encourage work-in-progress to be submitted and will take this into account in the review process. Submissions are due June 4th 2018 via the form here . Notifications of acceptance will be given by June 11th 2018.

Time	Program Item
8:45 - 9:00	Registration, welcome, and opening remarks
9:00 - 9:30	Yasemin Ozkan Aydin | Legs + Wheels = Robust Roving Robot
9:30 - 10:00	Poster Spotlight Presentations
10:00 - 10:30	Coffee break & Poster Session
10:30 - 11:00	Kaushik Jayaram | Proprioceptive Sensing and Control for Microrobots
11:00 - 11:30	Chen Li | Legged Robots Use Terradynamic Shapes and Adjust Legs to Escape Obstacles and Traverse Cluttered Terrain
11:30 - 12:00	Jianguo Zhao | Adaptive Miniature Walking Robot with Soft Joints and Links
12:00 - 1:30	Lunch break
1:30 - 2:00	Sarah Bergbreiter | Legged Locomotion in Sub-gram Robots
2:00 - 2:30	Roger Quinn | Small Legged Bio-inspired Robots that Crawl, Climb, Run and Fly
2:30 - 3:00	Coffee break & Poster Session
3:00 - 3:30	Adam Stager | Small Scale Robots: From Concept to Real-world Applications
3:30 - 4:00	Cynthia Sung | Computational Design of Foldable Robots
4:00 - 5:30	Posters, Panel discussion & Closing remarks

- T. Morrison and J. Schultz, Optimal shuffles to prevent quadruped tipover during cooperation.
- A. Singh, V. Rodrigues, E. Sachdeva, S. Agrawal, S. Hanisha, and M. Krishna, Novel legged-omni crawler to wheel transforming module.
- M. Barragan, N. Flowers, and A. M. Johnson, MiniRHex: A small, open-source, fully programmable walking hexapod.
- N. Doshi, K. Jayaram, B. Goldberg, Z. Manchester, R. J. Wood, and S. Kuindersma, Contact-implicit optimization of locomotion trajectories for a quadrupedal microrobot.
- Y. Han, Y. Wang, and C. Li, Locomotion energy landscape guides the design of legged robot gait for traversing large obstacles.
- Y. Han, Y. Wang, and C. Li, Legged robots use terradynamic shapes and adjust legs to escape obstacles and traverse cluttered terrain.
Kostas Karydis
Liyu Wang
Ron Fearing
Through the generous support of the National Science Foundation, we are happy to announce that the workshop will be able to offer travel mini-awards to U.S.-based workshop contributors to partially cover travel expenses. All workshop contributors are eligible, and are strongly encouraged to apply for a travel mini-award. The number of mini-awards to be made available is, however, limited. Priority will be given to workshop contributors from communities underrepresented in STEM, and/or HBCU/MSI-accredited Universities. Should you have any questions please contact the organizers via email.