As of September 6th, 2024, I have officially defended my thesis!
Despite the growing presence of wheeled, bipedal, and quadrupedal robots, their use in public spaces remains limited, largely confined to controlled environments like factories. This thesis explores the challenges hindering broader robot deployment by synthesizing insights from control theory, social science, and public policy. The first part focuses on analyzing legged robot locomotion and generating safe, robust trajectories for difficult terrains using novel hybrid systems analysis. This improves stability, performance, and tracking across different systems. The second part tackles the equitable design of robots, drawing from legal theory and community feedback, such as the perspectives of food pantry patrons on autonomous delivery robots. The thesis stresses the importance of integrating technical, social, and regulatory factors to ensure that robots can have a positive, wide-ranging impact, emphasizing fairness and inclusivity in their development and deployment.