Related papers: A Microstructural View of Burrowing with RoboClam
Numerous animals live in, and locomote through, subsea soils. To move in a medium dominated by frictional interactions, many of these animals have adopted unique burrowing strategies. This paper presents a burrowing model inspired by the…
This fluid dynamics video demonstrates the capabilities of an experimental setup to visualize organisms burrowing in granular substrates. The setup consists of a tank filled with 1mm soda-lime glass beads, backlit by halogen lights. The…
Marine exploration is essential to understanding ocean processes and organisms. While the use of current unmanned underwater vehicles has enabled many discoveries, there are still plenty of limitations toward exploring complex environments.…
It has been found that certain biological organisms, such as Erodium seeds and Scincus scincus, are capable of effectively and efficiently burying themselves in soil. Biological Organisms employ various locomotion modes, including coiling…
While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and…
Autonomous ocean-exploring vehicles have begun to take advantage of onboard sensor measurements of water properties such as salinity and temperature to locate oceanic features in real time. Such targeted sampling strategies enable more…
This paper introduces a size-adaptable robotic endoscope design, which aims to improve the efficiency and comfort of colonoscopy. The robotic endoscope proposed in this paper combines the expansion mechanism and the external drive system,…
Faced with strong demand for robots working in underwater pipeline environments, a novel underwater multi-model locomotion robot is designed and studied in this research. By mimicking the earthworm's metameric body, the robot is segmented…
Soil-dwelling organisms have evolved diverse strategies for efficient subterranean movement. For example, the seeds of Erodium cicutarium and Pelargonium species employ continuous rotational motion for self-burial, while the angled worm…
Most engineered pilings require substantially more force to be driven into the ground than they can resist during extraction. This requires relatively heavy equipment for insertion, which is problematic for anchoring in hard-to-access…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
Drilling and Extraction Automated System (DREAMS) is a fully automated prototype-drilling rig that can drill, extract water and assess subsurface density profiles from simulated lunar and Martian subsurface ice. DREAMS system is developed…
Rectilinear crawling locomotion is a primitive and common mode of locomotion in slender, soft-bodied animals. It requires coordinated contractions that propagate along a body that interacts frictionally with its environment. We propose a…
Robotic assistance for experimental manipulation in the life sciences is expected to enable precise manipulation of valuable samples, regardless of the skill of the scientist. Experimental specimens in the life sciences are subject to…
Mudskippers are unique amphibious fish capable of locomotion in diverse environments, including terrestrial surfaces, aquatic habitats, and highly viscous substrates such as mud. This versatile locomotion is largely enabled by their…
Interests in exploration of new energy resources are increasing due to the exhaustion of existing resources. To explore new energy sources, various studies have been conducted to improve the drilling performance of drilling equipment for…
This paper presents a modular in-pipeline climbing robot with a novel compliant foldable OmniCrawler mechanism. The circular cross-section of the OmniCrawler module enables a holonomic motion to facilitate the alignment of the robot in the…
Robotic assistance allows surgeries to be reliably and accurately executed while still under direct supervision of the surgeon, combining the strengths of robotic technology with the surgeon's expertise. This paper describes a robotic…
Self-burrowing robots navigating through granular media benefit from airflow-assisted burrowing, which reduces penetration resistance. However, the mechanisms underlying airflow-granular interactions remain poorly understood. To address…
Automating biological experimentation remains challenging due to the need for millimeter-scale precision, long and multi-step experiments, and the dynamic nature of living systems. Current liquid handlers only partially automate workflows,…