Related papers: A bistable soft gripper with mechanically embedded…
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…
Many industries extensively use flexible materials. Effective approaches for handling flexible objects with a robot manipulator must address residual vibrations. Existing solutions rely on complex models, use additional instrumentation for…
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…
Realizing high-performance soft robotic grippers is challenging because of the inherent limitations of the soft actuators and artificial muscles that drive them, including low force output, small actuation range, and poor compactness.…
There is a growing need for soft robotic platforms that perform gentle, precise handling of a wide variety of objects. Existing surface-based manipulation systems, however, lack the compliance and tactile feedback needed for delicate…
Model-based manipulation of deformable objects has traditionally dealt with objects while neglecting their dynamics, thus mostly focusing on very lightweight objects at steady state. At the same time, soft robotic research has made…
Soft robotics is an emerging field that yields promising results for tasks that require safe and robust interactions with the environment or with humans, such as grasping, manipulation, and human-robot interaction. Soft robots rely on…
Inspired by the snap-through action of a steel hairclip, we propose a design method for in-plane prestressed mechanisms that exhibit biomimetic morphing and high locomotion performance. Compliant bistable flapping mechanisms are fabricated…
Sensory feedback is essential for the control of soft robotic systems and to enable deployment in a variety of different tasks. Proprioception refers to sensing the robot's own state and is of crucial importance in order to deploy soft…
A simple gripper can solve more complex manipulation tasks if it can utilize the external environment such as pushing the object against the table or a vertical wall, known as "Extrinsic Dexterity." Previous work in extrinsic dexterity…
Soft robots are distinguished by their flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to perform nearly impossible tasks for rigid robots. However, controlling their behavior is challenging due to their nonlinear material response and infinite…
Grasping unknown objects has been an active research topic for decades. Approaches range from using various sensors (e.g. vision, tactile) to gain information about the object, to building passively compliant hands that react appropriately…
Modern robotic manipulation systems fall short of human manipulation skills partly because they rely on closing feedback loops exclusively around vision data, which reduces system bandwidth and speed. By developing autonomous grasping…
Tactile sensing is essential for dexterous manipulation, yet large-scale human demonstration datasets lack tactile feedback, limiting their effectiveness in skill transfer to robots. To address this, we introduce TacCap, a wearable Fiber…
Monitoring the state of contact is essential for robotic devices, especially grippers that implement gecko-inspired adhesives where intimate contact is crucial for a firm attachment. However, due to the lack of deformable sensors, few have…
Biosensors and wearable sensor systems with transmitting capabilities are currently developed and used for the monitoring of health data, exercise activities, and other performance data. Unlike conventional approaches, these devices enable…
Robotic capacities in object manipulation are incomparable to those of humans. Besides years of learning, humans rely heavily on the richness of information from physical interaction with the environment. In particular, tactile sensing is…
Cables are complex, high dimensional, and dynamic objects. Standard approaches to manipulate them often rely on conservative strategies that involve long series of very slow and incremental deformations, or various mechanical fixtures such…
Soft robotic hands and grippers are increasingly attracting attention as a robotic end-effector. Compared with rigid counterparts, they are safer for human-robot and environment-robot interactions, easier to control, lower cost and weight,…
We present an open-source untethered quadrupedal soft robot platform for dynamic locomotion (e.g., high-speed running and backflipping). The robot is mostly soft (80 vol.%) while driven by four geared servo motors. The robot's soft body and…