Related papers: Bio-inspired friction switches: adaptive pulley sy…
Friction plays a key role in manipulating objects. Most of what we do with our hands, and most of what robots do with their grippers, is based on the ability to control frictional forces. This paper aims to better understand the variability…
Most traditional robotic mechanisms feature inelastic joints that are unable to robustly handle large deformations and off-axis moments. As a result, the applied loads are transferred rigidly throughout the entire structure. The…
This paper investigates real-time control strategies for dynamical systems that involve frictional contact interactions. Hybridness and underactuation are key characteristics of these systems that complicate the design of feedback…
Accurately estimating object mass and friction is fundamental to achieving reliable and adaptive robotic manipulation. Although interactive perception provides a powerful mechanism for inferring such properties, most existing approaches…
Industrial manipulators do not collapse under their own weight when powered off due to the friction in their joints. Although these mechanism are effective for stiff position control of pick-and-place, they are inappropriate for legged…
The increasing need for sharing workspace and interactive physical tasks between robots and humans has raised concerns regarding safety of such operations. In this regard, controllable clutches have shown great potential for addressing…
The ability of animals to interact with complex dynamics is unmatched in robots. Especially important to the interaction performances is the online adaptation of body dynamics, which can be modeled as an impedance behaviour. However, the…
We consider an active-passive mechanical pair in which the relative motion of the latter is constrained by the mechanical impact. The system dynamics is described by the previously introduced modeling frameworks of force transition and…
The paper presents a model for low friction made up of a self-excited oscillator sliding along a periodic potential. It is shown that if the self-excitation affects a body sliding tangentially to a surface, than stick-slip modification and…
We investigate the effect of wing twist flexibility on lift and efficiency of a flapping-wing micro air vehicle capable of liftoff. Wings used previously were chosen to be fully rigid due to modeling and fabrication constraints. However,…
Dynamics simulation with frictional contacts is important for a wide range of applications, from cloth simulation to object manipulation. Recent methods using smoothed lagged friction forces have enabled robust and differentiable simulation…
Wearable devices like exoskeletons are designed to reduce excessive loads on specific joints of the body. Specifically, single- or two-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) upper-body industrial exoskeletons typically focus on compensating for the…
Tendon-driven hand orthoses have advantages over exoskeletons with respect to wearability and safety because of their low-profile design and ability to fit a range of patients without requiring custom joint alignment. However, no existing…
Nanoscaled friction is a fundamental tribological phenomenon with complex behavior of its dynamical force. Here, we utilize the Prandtl-Tomlinson framework to investigate systematically the different means of control of the frictional force…
Machines that mimic humans have inspired scientists for centuries. Bio-inspired soft robotic hands are a good example of such an endeavor, featuring intrinsic material compliance and continuous motion to deal with uncertainty and adapt to…
Hyper-redundant tendon-driven manipulators offer greater flexibility and compliance over traditional manipulators. A common way of controlling such manipulators relies on adjusting tendon lengths, which is an accessible control parameter.…
Nowadays, additive manufacturing processes greatly simplify the production of openwork workpiece providing new opportunities for workpieces design. Based on Nature knowledge, a new bio-inspired workpiece structural optimization approach is…
In intelligent manufacturing, robots are asked to dynamically adapt their behaviours without reducing productivity. Human teaching, where an operator physically interacts with the robot to demonstrate a new task, is a promising strategy to…
This paper introduces the BRL/Pisa/IIT (BPI) SoftHand: a single actuator-driven, low-cost, 3D-printed, tendon-driven, underactuated robot hand that can be used to perform a range of grasping tasks. Based on the adaptive synergies of the…
In this work, the novel, open-source humanoid robot, PANDORA, is presented where a majority of the structural elements are manufactured using 3D-printed compliant materials. As opposed to contemporary approaches that incorporate the elastic…