Related papers: Discrete Cosserat Approach for Multi-Section Soft …
In this paper, the modelling strategy of a Cosserat rod element (CRE) is addressed systematically for 3-dimensional dynamical analysis of slender structures. We employ the exact nonlinear kinematic relationships in the sense of Cosserat…
Soft robots have the potential to interact with sensitive environments and perform complex tasks effectively. However, motion plans and trajectories for soft manipulators are challenging to calculate due to their deformable nature and…
Purpose of review: We review recent advances in algorithmic development and validation for modeling and control of soft robots leveraging the Koopman operator theory. Recent findings: We identify the following trends in recent research…
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape…
Due to their ability to move without sliding relative to their environment, soft growing robots are attractive for deploying distributed sensor networks in confined spaces. Sensing of the state of such robots would also add to their…
With the explosive growth of rigid-body simulators, policy learning in simulation has become the de facto standard for most rigid morphologies. In contrast, soft robotic simulation frameworks remain scarce and are seldom adopted by the soft…
We present a method for differentiable simulation of soft articulated bodies. Our work enables the integration of differentiable physical dynamics into gradient-based pipelines. We develop a top-down matrix assembly algorithm within…
Robotics is shifting from rigid, articulated systems to more sophisticated and heterogeneous mechanical structures. Soft robots, for example, have continuously deformable elements capable of large deformations. The flourishing of control…
The Finite Element Method (FEM) is a powerful modeling tool for predicting soft robots' behavior, but its computation time can limit practical applications. In this paper, a learning-based approach based on condensation of the FEM model is…
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…
Soft robots are challenging to model and control as inherent non-linearities (e.g., elasticity and deformation), often requires complex explicit physics-based analytical modeling (e.g., a priori geometric definitions). While machine…
Soft robots can safely interact with environments because of their mechanical compliance. Self-collision is also employed in the modern design of soft robots to enhance their performance during different tasks. However, developing an…
Rapid robotic system development sets a demand for multi-disciplinary methods and tools to explore and compare design alternatives. In this paper, we present collaborative modeling that combines discrete-event models of controller software…
The optimal control of a mechanical system is of crucial importance in many realms. Typical examples are the determination of a time-minimal path in vehicle dynamics, a minimal energy trajectory in space mission design, or optimal motion…
Underactuated robots are characterized by a larger number of degrees of freedom than actuators and if they are designed with a specific mass distribution, they can be controlled by means of differential flatness theory. This structural…
This paper focuses on the construction of differential-cascaded structures for control of nonlinear robot manipulators subjected to disturbances and unavailability of partial information of the desired trajectory. The proposed…
Tendon-actuated concentric tube mechanisms combine the advantages of tendon-driven continuum robots and concentric tube robots while addressing their respective limitations. They overcome the restricted degrees of freedom often seen in…
Model generalization of the underlying dynamics is critical for achieving data efficiency when learning for robot control. This paper proposes a novel approach for learning dynamics leveraging the symmetry in the underlying robotic system,…
We present a versatile framework for the computational co-design of legged robots and dynamic maneuvers. Current state-of-the-art approaches are typically based on random sampling or concurrent optimization. We propose a novel bilevel…
The 'infinite' passive degrees of freedom of soft robotic arms render their control especially challenging. In this paper, we leverage a previously developed model, which drawing equivalence of the soft arm to a series of universal joints,…