Related papers: Bio-inspired Tensegrity Soft Modular Robots
Vertebrate animals benefit from a combination of rigidity for structural support and softness for adaptation. Similarly, integrating rigidity and softness can enhance the versatility of soft robotics. However, the challenges associated with…
Tensegrity robots, which are composed of compressive elements (rods) and flexible tensile elements (e.g., cables), have a variety of advantages, including flexibility, low weight, and resistance to mechanical impact. Nevertheless, the…
Soft robots are inherently compliant and have a strong potential to realize human-friendly and safe robots. Despite continued research highlighting the potential of soft robots, they remain largely confined to laboratory settings. In this…
While parallel grippers and multi-fingered robotic hands are well developed and commonly used in structured settings, it remains a challenge in robotics to design a highly articulated robotic hand that can be comparable to human hands to…
Tensegrity robots, composed of rigid rods connected by elastic cables, have a number of unique properties that make them appealing for use as planetary exploration rovers. However, control of tensegrity robots remains a difficult problem…
Developing a framework for the locomotion of a six-legged robot or a hexapod is a complex task that has extensive hardware and computational requirements. In this paper, we present a bio-inspired framework for the locomotion of a hexapod.…
We introduce collision-resilient aerial vehicles with icosahedron tensegrity structures, capable of surviving high-speed impacts and resuming operations post-collision. We present a model-based design approach, which guides the selection of…
Tendon-driven robotic catheters are capable of precise execution of minimally invasive cardiac procedures including ablations and imaging. These procedures require accurate mathematical models of not only the catheter and tendons but also…
Soft machines typically exhibit slow locomotion speed and low manipulation strength because of intrinsic limitations of soft materials. Here, we present a generic design principle that harnesses mechanical instability for a variety of…
Magnetic soft robots embedded with hard magnetic particles enable untethered actuation via external magnetic fields, offering remote, rapid, and precise control, which is highly promising for biomedical applications. However, designing such…
Inspired by the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, articulated soft robots are robotic systems embedding elastic elements into a classic rigid (skeleton-like) structure. Leveraging on their bodies elasticity, soft robots promise to…
This paper introduces a Cosserat rod based mathematical model for modeling a self-controllable variable curvature soft continuum robot. This soft continuum robot has a hollow inner channel and was developed with the ability to perform…
Tensegrity structures are becoming widely used in robotics, such as continuously bending soft manipulators and mobile robots to explore unknown and uneven environments dynamically. Estimating their shape, which is the foundation of their…
Robots built from cable-driven tensegrity (`tension-integrity') structures have many of the advantages of soft robots, such as flexibility and robustness, while still obeying simple statics and dynamics models. However, existing tensegrity…
Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Grasping deformable objects is not well researched due to the complexity in modelling and simulating the dynamic behavior of such objects. However, with the rapid development of physics-based simulators that support soft bodies, the…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
The characteristic ``in-plane" bending associated with soft robots' deformation make them preferred over rigid robots in sophisticated manipulation and movement tasks. Executing such motion strategies to precision in soft deformable robots…
Soft robots offer adaptability and safe interaction with complex environments. Rapid prototyping kits that allow soft robots to be assembled easily will allow different geometries to be explored quickly to suit different environments or to…