Related papers: Efficient sliding locomotion with isotropic fricti…
We present an exactly solvable nonlinear model for the directed motion of an object due to zero-mean fluctuations on a uniform featureless surface. Directed motion results from the effect of dry (Coulombic) friction coupled to asymmetric…
Dry friction has been proposed as a rectifying mechanism allowing mass transport over a vibrating surface, even when vibrations are horizontal and unbiased. It has been suggested that the drift velocity will always saturate when the energy…
Soft robots are interesting examples of hyper-redundancy in robotics, however, the nonlinear continuous dynamics of these robots and the use of hyper-elastic and visco-elastic materials makes modeling of these robots more complicated. This…
Dissipative environments are ubiquitous in nature, from microscopic swimmers in low-Reynolds-number fluids to macroscopic animals in frictional media. In this study, motivated by various behaviours of {\it Caenorhabditis elegans} during…
Anisotropic viscous drag is usually believed to be a requirement for the low Reynolds number locomotion of slender bodies such as flagella and cilia. Here we show that locomotion under isotropic drag is possible for extensible slender…
Symmetry is a central organizing principle in natural systems, yet its use as a unifying design strategy in robotics has largely remained limited to geometric form. We show that symmetry can instead be leveraged at the level of dynamic…
Robot navigation within complex environments requires precise state estimation and localization to ensure robust and safe operations. For ambulating mobile robots like robot snakes, traditional methods for sensing require multiple embedded…
Biomimetic scale-covered substrates provide geometric tailorability via scale orientation, spacing and also interfacial properties of contact in various deformation modes. No work has investigated the effect of friction in twisting…
Soft slender structures are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems and can be observed at scales that range from the nanometric to the kilometric, from polymers to space tethers. We present a practical numerical approach to simulate…
Understanding how stick-slip dynamics manifests in diverse physical conditions is a crucial topic in tribology. Although it has been extensively studied in simple frictional configurations, the characterization of stick-slip behavior in…
A modification of Coulomb's law of friction uses a variable coefficient of friction that depends on a power law in the energy of mechanical oscillation. Through the use of three different exponents: 0, 1/2 and 1; all commonly encountered…
Simple models of interacting spins play an important role in physics. They capture the properties of many magnetic materials, but also extend to other systems, such as bosons and fermions in a lattice, systems with gauge fields, high-Tc…
SLOT (Soft Legged Omnidirectional Tetrapod), a tendon-driven soft quadruped robot with 3D-printed TPU legs, is presented to study physics-informed modeling and control of compliant legged locomotion using only four actuators. Each leg is…
We report numerical results on the velocity statistics of topological defects during the dynamics of phase ordering and non-relaxational evolution assisted by an external shear ow. We propose a numerically efficient tracking method for…
Motion planning for locomotion systems typically requires translating high-level rigid-body tasks into low-level joint trajectories-a process that is straightforward for car-like robots with fixed, unbounded actuation inputs but more…
This paper presents a method for online estimation of contact properties during in-hand sliding manipulation with a parallel gripper. We estimate the static and Coulomb friction as well as the contact radius from tactile measurements of…
Fish, birds, insects and robots frequently swim or fly in groups. During their 3 dimensional collective motion, these agents do not stop, they avoid collisions by strong short-range repulsion, and achieve group cohesion by weak long-range…
In this study, we demonstrate velocity-dependent directional friction on a surface structured with tilted (~57{\deg}) titania nanorods using standard and colloidal probe force microscopy. Friction is measured at four different sliding…
Recently, we showed that optimization problems, both in infinite as well as in finite dimensions, for continuous variables and soft excluded volume constraints, can display entire isostatic phases where local minima of the cost function are…
We numerically study a simple sliding system: a rigid mass pulled by a spring with a strong in-plane stiffness anisotropy and a small misalignment angle. Simulations show that the apparent stick phase appearing in this system is in reality…