  Bipedal robots are a fascinating and advanced category of robots designed to
mimic human form and locomotion. The development of the bipedal robots is a
significant milestone in robotics. However, even the most advanced bipedal
robots are susceptible to changes in terrain, obstacle negotiation, payload,
and weight distribution, and the ability to recover after stumbles. These
problems can be circumvented by introducing thrusters. Thrusters will allow the
robot to stabilize on various uneven terrain. The robot can easily avoid
obstacles and will be able to recover after stumbling. Harpy is a bipedal robot
that has 6 joints and 2 thrusters and serves as a hardware platform for
implementing advanced control algorithms. This thesis explores manufacturing
harpy hardware such that the overall system can be lightweight and strong.
Also, it goes through simulation results to show thruster-assisted walking, and
at last, it shows firmware and communication network development which is
implemented on actual hardware. vii
