Related papers: A Validated Physical Model For Real-Time Simulatio…
Snake robots have the potential to maneuver through tightly packed and complex environments. One challenge in enabling them to do so is the complexity in determining how to coordinate their many degrees-of-freedom to create purposeful…
Soft robots have found extensive applications in the medical field, particularly in rehabilitation exercises, assisted grasping, and artificial organs. Despite significant advancements in simulating various components of the digestive…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
Soft robots, particularly magnetic soft robots, require specialized simulation tools to accurately model their deformation under external magnetic fields. However, existing platforms often lack dedicated support for magnetic materials,…
When we move on snow, sand, or mud, the ground deforms under our feet, immediately affecting our gait. We propose a physically based model for computing such interactions in real time, from only the kinematic motion of a virtual character.…
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…
Precise kinematic modeling is critical in calibration and controller design for soft robots, yet remains a challenging issue due to their highly nonlinear and complex behaviors. To tackle the issue, numerous data-driven machine learning…
Dynamic modeling and control are critical for unleashing soft robots' potential, yet remain challenging due to their complex constitutive behaviors and real-world operating conditions. Bio-inspired musculoskeletal robots, which integrate…
Soft robots have the ability to adapt to their environment, which makes them suitable for use in disaster areas and agricultural fields, where their mobility is constrained by complex terrain. One of the main challenges in developing soft…
A key ingredient to achieving intelligent behavior is physical understanding that equips robots with the ability to reason about the effects of their actions in a dynamic environment. Several methods have been proposed to learn dynamics…
Animals run robustly in diverse terrain. This locomotion robustness is puzzling because axon conduction velocity is limited to a few ten meters per second. If reflex loops deliver sensory information with significant delays, one would…
High-fidelity physics simulation is essential for scalable robotic learning, but the sim-to-real gap persists, especially for tasks involving complex, dynamic, and discontinuous interactions like physical contacts. Explicit system…
Recently, suction-based robotic systems with microscopic features or active suction components have been proposed to grip rough and irregular surfaces. However, sophisticated fabrication methods or complex control systems are required for…
This paper demonstrates the computational design of soft elastomeric pneumatic actuators using nonlinear topology optimization. An existing density- and porohyperelasticity-based topology optimization framework was extended from 2D to 3D…
We present a sampling-based approach to reasoning about the caging-based manipulation of rigid and a simplified class of deformable 3D objects subject to energy constraints. Towards this end, we propose the notion of soft fixtures extending…
Object manipulation has been extensively studied in the context of fixed base and mobile manipulators. However, the overactuated locomotion modality employed by snake robots allows for a unique blend of object manipulation through…
We employ a novel computational modeling framework to perform high-fidelity direct numerical simulations of aero-structural interactions in bat-inspired membrane wings. The wing of a bat consists of an elastic membrane supported by a highly…
Positive-negative pressure regulation is critical to soft robotic actuators, enabling large motion ranges and versatile actuation modes. However, achieving high-performance regulation across both pressure polarities remains challenging due…
Soft and soft-rigid hybrid robots are inherently underactuated and operate under tight actuator limits, making task-space control with stability guarantees challenging. Common nonlinear strategies for soft robots (e.g., those based on PD…
This manuscript presents a model of compliant contacts for time-critical humanoid robot motion control. The proposed model considers the environment as a continuum of spring-damper systems, which allows us to compute the equivalent contact…