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Modular small-scale robots offer the potential for on-demand assembly and disassembly, enabling task-specific adaptation in dynamic and constrained environments. However, existing modular magnetic platforms often depend on workspace…
In the quest for electrically-driven soft actuators, the focus has shifted away from liquid-gas phase transition, commonly associated with reduced strain rates and actuation delays, in favour of electrostatic and other electrothermal…
Snapping instabilities in soft structures offer a powerful pathway to achieve rapid and energy-efficient actuation. In this study, an eccentric dome-shaped snapping actuator is developed to generate controllable asymmetric motion through…
We present a fully edible pneumatic actuator based on gelatin-glycerol composite. The actuator is monolithic, fabricated via a molding process, and measures 90 mm in length, 20 mm in width, and 17 mm in thickness. Thanks to the composite…
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…
We propose a mechanically simple and cheap design for a series elastic actuator with controllable stiffness. Such characteristics are necessary for animals for running, jumping, throwing, and manipulation, yet in robots, variable stiffness…
Soft electrothermal actuators are of great interest in diverse application domains for their simplicity, compliance, and ease of control. However, the very nature of thermally induced mechanical actuation sets inherent operation…
Rehabilitation robotics continues to confront substantial challenges, particularly in achieving smooth, safe, and intuitive human-robot interactions for upper limb motor training. Many current systems depend on complex mechanical designs,…
Magnetic elastomers are appealing materials from an application point of view: they combine the mechanical softness and deformability of polymeric substances with the addressability by external magnetic fields. In this way, mechanical…
Magnetic navigation systems, including magnetic tracking systems and magnetic actuation systems, have shown great potential for occlusion-free localization and remote control of intracorporeal medical devices and robots in minimally…
Over the past few decades, efforts have been made towards robust robotic grasping, and therefore dexterous manipulation. The soft gripper has shown their potential in robust grasping due to their inherent properties-low, control complexity,…
The automatic design of embodied agents (e.g. robots) has existed for 31 years and is experiencing a renaissance of interest in the literature. To date however, the field has remained narrowly focused on two kinds of anatomically simple…
This study proposed a novel robotic gripper that can achieve grasping and infinite wrist twisting motions using a single actuator. The gripper is equipped with a differential gear mechanism that allows switching between the grasping and…
While its biological significance is well-documented, its application in soft robotics, particularly for the transport of fragile and irregularly shaped objects, remains underexplored. This study presents a modular soft robotic actuator…
One of the motivations for the development of wirelessly guided untethered magnetic devices (UMDs), such as microrobots and nanorobots, is the continuous demand to manipulate, sort, and assemble micro-objects with high level of accuracy and…
Soft continuum robots achieve complex deformation through elastic equilibrium, making their reachable motions governed jointly by structural design and actuation-induced mechanics. This work develops a general formulation that integrates…
Biological muscles have always attracted robotics researchers due to their efficient capabilities in compliance, force generation, and mechanical work. Many groups are working on the development of artificial muscles, however,…
This paper present a novel dual-speed actuator adapted to robotics. In many applications, robots have to bear large loads while moving slowly and also have to move quickly through the air with almost no load. This lead to conflicting…
Series Elastic Actuators provide many benefits in force control of robots in unconstrained environments. These benefits include high force fidelity, extremely low impedance, low friction, and good force control bandwidth. Series Elastic…
In this paper, we report the results from the analysis of a numerical model used for the design of a magnetic linear actuator with applications to fin-based locomotion. Most of the current robotic fish generate bending motion using rotary…