Related papers: A Microstructural View of Burrowing with RoboClam
Inchworm crawling allows for both quasistatic and dynamic gaits at a wide range of actuation frequencies. This locomotion mechanism is common in nonskeletal animals and exploited extensively in the bio-inspired field of soft robotics. In…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
Terrestrial animals and robots are susceptible to flipping-over during rapid locomotion in complex terrains. However, small robots are less capable of self-righting from an upside-down orientation compared to small animals like insects.…
Protecting and restoring forest ecosystems has become an important conservation issue. Although various robots have been used for field data collection to protect forest ecosystems, the complex terrain and dense canopy make the data…
Surface treatment tasks such as grinding, sanding or polishing are a vital step of the value chain in many industries, but are notoriously challenging to automate. We present RoboGrind, an integrated system for the intuitive, interactive…
Crawling is a common locomotion mechanism in soft robots and nonskeletal animals. In this work we propose modeling soft-robotic legged locomotion by approximating it with an equivalent articulated robot with elastic joints. For concreteness…
We present computational and experimental results on how artificial intelligence (AI) learns to control an Acrobot using reinforcement learning (RL). Thereby the experimental setup is designed as an embedded system, which is of interest for…
Monocular visual SLAM has become an attractive practical approach for robot localization and 3D environment mapping, since cameras are small, lightweight, inexpensive, and produce high-rate, high-resolution data streams. Although numerous…
Caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars are sites of geological and astrobiological interest but consist of terrain that is inaccessible with traditional robot locomotion. To support the exploration of these sites, we present ReachBot, a…
This study presents a powered transtibial prosthesis with complete push-off assistance, RoboANKLE. The design aims to fulfill specific requirements, such as a sufficient range of motion (RoM) while providing the necessary torque for…
Effective pollination is a key challenge for indoor farming, since bees struggle to navigate without the sun. While a variety of robotic system solutions have been proposed, it remains difficult to autonomously check that a flower has been…
For real-world deployments, it is critical to allow robots to navigate in complex environments autonomously. Traditional methods usually maintain an internal map of the environment, and then design several simple rules, in conjunction with…
We study a semantic SLAM problem faced by a robot tasked with autonomous weeding under the corn canopy. The goal is to detect corn stalks and localize them in a global coordinate frame. This is a challenging setup for existing algorithms…
Modeling and manipulating elasto-plastic objects are essential capabilities for robots to perform complex industrial and household interaction tasks (e.g., stuffing dumplings, rolling sushi, and making pottery). However, due to the high…
In the gastrointestinal (GI) tract endoscopy field, ingestible wireless capsule endoscopy is considered as a minimally invasive novel diagnostic technology to inspect the entire GI tract and to diagnose various diseases and pathologies.…
Many animals, modern aircraft, and underwater vehicles use streamlined body shapes that reduce fluid dynamic drag to achieve fast and effective locomotion in air and water. Similarly, numerous small terrestrial animals move through…
Metachronal locomotion is a widespread swimming mode used by aquatic swarming organisms to achieve performance and maneuverability in the intermediate Reynolds number regime. Our understanding of the mechanisms driving these abilities is…
Subterranean burrowing is inherently difficult for robots because of the high forces experienced as well as the high amount of uncertainty in this domain. Because of the difficulty in modeling forces in granular media, we propose the use of…
Sidewinding, a locomotion strategy characterized by the coordination of lateral and vertical body undulations, is frequently observed in rattlesnakes and has been successfully reconstructed by limbless robotic systems for effective movement…
A simple way to generate propulsion at low Reynolds number is to periodically oscillate a passive flexible filament. Here we present a macroscopic experimental investigation of such a propulsive mechanism. A robotic swimmer is constructed…