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We present a theory of modified reduced dynamics in the presence of counting fields. Reduced dynamics techniques are useful for describing open quantum systems at long emergent timescales when the memory timescales are short. However, they…
Molecular dynamics simulations are powerful tools to extract the microscopic mechanisms characterizing the properties of soft materials. We recently introduced machine learning surrogates for molecular dynamics simulations of soft materials…
Large-scale robot datasets have facilitated the learning of a wide range of robot manipulation skills, but these datasets remain difficult to collect and scale further, owing to the intractable amount of human time, effort, and cost…
This paper presents a control interface to translate the residual body motions of individuals living with severe disabilities, into control commands for body-machine interaction. A custom, wireless, wearable multi-sensor network is used to…
The incredible feats of athleticism demonstrated by humans are made possible in part by a vast repertoire of general-purpose motor skills, acquired through years of practice and experience. These skills not only enable humans to perform…
A novel approach is presented for computing flexible body dynamics based on conventional structural dynamics models. This approach innovatively captures the rigid body motion component embedded within a flexible body's movement, generates…
The mechanics of complex bodies with memory effects is discussed in linearized setting. The attention is focused on the characterization of free energies in terms of minimum work and maximum recoverable work in the bulk and along a…
Soft robots have the potential to revolutionize the use of robotic systems with their capability of establishing safe, robust, and adaptable interactions with their environment, but their precise control remains challenging. In contrast,…
Compared with traditional rigid-body robots, soft robots not only exhibit unprecedented adaptation and flexibility but also present novel challenges in their modeling and control because of their infinite degrees of freedom. Most of the…
To produce sounds, we adjust the tension of our vocal folds to shape their properties and control the pitch. This efficient mechanism offers inspiration for designing reconfigurable materials and adaptable soft robots. However,…
Understanding the binding dynamics of liquid molecules is of fundamental importance in physical and life sciences. However, nanoscale fast dynamics pose great challenges for experimental characterization. Conventionally, the binding…
Cutting soft materials is a complex process governed by the interplay of bulk large deformation, interfacial soft fracture, and contact forces with the cutting tool. Existing experimental characterizations and numerical models often fail to…
Robots built from soft materials can alter their shape and size in a particular profile. This shape-changing ability could be extremely helpful for rescue robots and those operating in unknown terrains and environments. In changing shape,…
In the fields of computation and neuroscience, much is still unknown about the underlying computations that enable key cognitive functions including learning, memory, abstraction and behavior. This paper proposes a mathematical and…
A long-standing engineering problem, the control of soft robots is difficult because of their highly non-linear, heterogeneous, anisotropic, and distributed nature. Here, bridging engineering and biology, a neural reservoir is employed for…
Humans can possess good mechanics intuitions by learning from a few examples, which leads to the question of how to develop artificial mechanics intuitions that can be learned from small data, as we are eagerly entering the era of…
Soft robotics have gained increased attention from the robotic community due to their unique features such as compliance and human safety. Impressive amount of soft robotic prototypes have shown their superior performance over their rigid…
This paper presents a motion analysis framework for an athlete wearing sport-specific flexible prosthesis based on the soft-rigid hybrid-link system. Such a motion analysis is a challenging problem because we need to consider the…
Viscous streaming is an efficient mechanism to exploit inertia at the microscale for flow control. While streaming from rigid features has been thoroughly investigated, when body compliance is involved, as in biological settings, little is…
This work provides a complete framework for the simulation, co-optimization, and sim-to-real transfer of the design and control of soft legged robots. The compliance of soft robots provides a form of "mechanical intelligence" -- the ability…