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This research considers the task of evolving the physical structure of a robot to enhance its performance in various environments, which is a significant problem in the field of Evolutionary Robotics. Inspired by the fields of evolutionary…
The tribological properties of two smooth surfaces in the presence of a thin confined film are investigated with a generic model for the interaction between two surfaces and with computer simulations. It is shown that at large normal…
Soft stretchable materials are key for arising technologies such as stretchable electronics or batteries, smart textiles, biomedical devices, tissue engineering and soft robotics. Recent attempts to design such materials, via e.g.…
The importance of many-body dispersion effects in layered materials subjected to high external loads is evaluated. State-of-the-art many-body dispersion density functional theory calculations performed for graphite, hexagonal boron nitride,…
The understanding of sliding friction for wet, patterned surfaces from first principles is challenging. While emerging applications have sought design principles from biology, a general framework is lacking because soft interfaces…
Biomimetic scale-covered substrates are architected meta-structures exhibiting fascinating emergent nonlinearities via the geometry of collective scales contacts. In spite of much progress in understanding their elastic nonlinearity, their…
The present contribution focuses on the effect of adherend surface roughness on the strength of adhesive joints, which are particularly cost-effective and extensively applied in a wide range of industrial applications. However, the…
In contrast with the diversity of materials found in nature, most robots are designed with some combination of aluminum, stainless steel, and 3D-printed filament. Additionally, robotic systems are typically assumed to follow basic…
Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…
Surface roughness affects many properties of colloids, from depletion [1] and capillary interactions [2], to their dispersibility [3] and use as emulsion stabilizers [4]. It also impacts particle-particle frictional contacts, which have…
We design toy protein mimicking a machine-like function of an enzyme. Using an insight gained by the study of conformation space of compact lattice polymers, we demonstrate the possibility of a large scale conformational rearrangement which…
Soft lubricated contacts exhibit complex interfacial behaviours governed by the coupled effects of multiscale surface roughness and non-linear fluid-solid interactions. Accurately capturing this interplay across thin-film flows is…
The spider silk is one of the most interesting bio-materials investigated in the last years. One of the main reasons that brought scientists to study this organized system is its high level of resistance if compared to other artificial…
The artificial hands for sociable robotics and prosthetics are expected to be touched by other people. Because the skin is the main interface during the contact, a need arises to duplicate humanlike characteristics for artificial skins for…
Friction modulation technology enables the creation of textural effects on flat haptic displays. However, an intuitive and manageably small design space for construction of such haptic textures remains an unfulfilled goal for user interface…
The objective of this note is to share some reflections of the authors regarding the use of sliding mode designs in control systems. We believe the abundant, and ever increasing, appearance of this kind of works on our scientific…
Frictional properties of interfaces with dynamic chemical bonds have been the subject of intensive experimental investigation and modeling, as it provides important insights into the molecular origin of the empirical rate and state laws,…
Recent tribological experiments revealed that graphene is able to lubricate macroscale steel-on-steel sliding contacts very effectively both in dry and humid conditions. This effect has been attributed to a mechanical action of graphene…
A tunable stiffness bone rod was designed, optimized, and 3D printed to address the common shortcomings of existing bone rods in the healing of long fractured bones. The common deficiencies of existing bone fixations are high stiffness,…
Haptic feedback is important to make robots more dexterous and effective in unstructured environments. High-resolution haptic sensors are still not widely available, and their application is often bound by the resolution-robustness dilemma.…