Related papers: Quick-cast: A method for fast and precise scalable…
Soft actuators have drawn significant attention from researchers with an inherently compliant design to address the safety issues in physical human-robot interactions. However, they are also vulnerable and pose new challenges in the design,…
The Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) micro-plasma actuator stands out as a highly promising tool for active fluid flow control. Researchers specializing in flow control have taken a keen interest in this actuator due to its economical…
Three-dimensional concrete printing (3DCP) has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. According to many, 3DCP is set to revolutionize the construction industry: yielding unparalleled aesthetics, better quality control, lower cost, and…
Due to its exceptional dimensional stability in harsh thermal conditions and excellent mechanical and optical properties, Corning ultra-low expansion (ULE) glass is the material of choice in many high-demanding fields such as aerospace,…
Soft robots can exhibit better performance in specific tasks compared to conventional robots, particularly in healthcare-related tasks. However, the field of soft robotics is still young, and designing them often involves mimicking natural…
We present an experimental method to fabricate centimetric thin elastic capsules with highly uniform thickness and negligible bending stiffness using silicone elastomers. In our experiments, the capsules thickness is tunable at fabrication,…
The confluence of soft robotics and fluidic logic have sparked innovations in integrated robots with superior flexibility and potential machine intelligence. However, current fluidically driven soft robots suffer from either a large number…
Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field that spans the fields of chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Due to the diverse background of the field, there have been contrasting naming schemes such as 'intelligent', 'smart' and…
Soft underwater robots typically explore bioinspired designs at the expense of power efficiency when compared to traditional underwater robots, which limits their practical use in real-world applications. We leverage a fluidic closed-loop…
3D Gaussian splatting has become a prominent technique for representing and rendering complex 3D scenes, due to its high fidelity and speed advantages. However, the growing demand for large-scale models calls for effective compression to…
Liquid Crystal Elastomers with near-ambient temperature-responsiveness (NAT-LCEs) have been extensively studied for building bio-compatible, low-power consumption devices and robotics. However, conventional manufacturing methods face…
Microfluidic devices have been the subject of considerable attention in recent years. The development of novel microfluidic devices, their evaluation, and their validation requires simulations. While common methods based on Computational…
3D printing technology offers the possibility of producing synthetic samples with accurately defined microstructures. As indicated by effective medium theory (EMT), the shapes, orientations, and sizes of voids significantly affect the…
We investigate how controlled foaming alters the mechanical dissipation of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs). Using thermal expandable microspheres, we generate homogeneous foams with precisely tuned bubble volume fractions up to 13% and…
Liquid crystal elastomers contract along their director on heating and recover on cooling, offering great potential as actuators and artificial muscles. If a flat sheet is programmed with a spatially varying director pattern, it will…
The superconducting linear accelerator is a highly flexiable facility for modern scientific discoveries, necessitating weekly reconfiguration and tuning. Accordingly, minimizing setup time proves essential in affording users with ample…
The alignment of fibers and cells in living tissues affect their mechanical properties and functionality. In this context, one can draw an analogy between tissues and nematic liquid crystal elastomers. We explore this analogy by growing…
Soft robots - due to their intrinsic flexibility of the body - can adaptively navigate unstructured environments. One of the most popular locomotion gaits that has been implemented in soft robots is undulation. The undulation motion in soft…
We present FlexiTac, a low-cost, open-source, and scalable piezoresistive tactile sensing solution designed for robotic end-effectors. FlexiTac is a practical "plug-in" module consisting of (i) thin, flexible tactile sensor pads that…
Task-driven design of soft robots requires models that are physically accurate and computationally efficient, while remaining transferable across actuator designs and task scenarios. However, existing modeling approaches typically face a…