Related papers: Programming Soft Robots with Flexible Mechanical M…
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape…
Animals have remarkable abilities to adapt locomotion to different terrains and tasks. However, robots trained by means of reinforcement learning are typically able to solve only a single task and a transferred policy is usually inferior to…
Mechanical metamaterials are artifical composites that exhibit a wide range of advanced functionalities such as negative Poisson's ratio, shape-shifting, topological protection, multistability, and enhanced energy dissipation. To date, most…
One of the trendsetting themes in soft robotics has been the goal of developing the ultimate universal soft robotic gripper. One that is capable of manipulating items of various shapes, sizes, thicknesses, textures, and weights. All the…
Elastic metamaterials are often designed for a single permanent function. We explore the possibility of altering a material's function repeatedly through a self-organization, "training" process, controlled by applied strains. We show that…
We posit that embodied artificial intelligence is not only a computational, but also a materials problem. While the importance of material and structural properties in the control loop are well understood, materials can take an active role…
An accurate, physically-based, and differentiable model of soft robots can unlock downstream applications in optimal control. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is an expressive approach for modeling highly deformable structures such as…
Magnetic soft robots embedded with hard magnetic particles enable untethered actuation via external magnetic fields, offering remote, rapid, and precise control, which is highly promising for biomedical applications. However, designing such…
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…
Future active metamaterials for reconfigurable structural applications require fast, untethered, reversible, and reprogrammable (multimodal) transformability with shape locking. Herein, we aim to construct and demonstrate a…
Emerging multiphysics metamaterials offer a distinct possibility for regulating complex physical processes. However, two severe constraints still lower their functionality and tunability. First, multiphysics functionality is fixed once…
In recent years, soft robotics simulators have evolved to offer various functionalities, including the simulation of different material types (e.g., elastic, hyper-elastic) and actuation methods (e.g., pneumatic, cable-driven, servomotor).…
The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…
Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
Reconfigurable metamaterials are constructed from tessellation of deformable modules that give rise to a set of tuneable properties. To date, most research focuses on metamaterials that morph between final configurations along a single…
This study compares the propulsion of helical microrobots based on hard- and soft-magnetic elements under rotating magnetic fields. Results show that hard-magnetic microrobots achieved step-out frequencies and maximum propulsion speeds 4.5…
The robotics community has seen an exponential growth in the level of complexity of the theoretical tools presented for the modeling of soft robotics devices. Different solutions have been presented to overcome the difficulties related to…
Complex and even chaotic dynamics, though prevalent in many natural and engineered systems, has been largely avoided in the design of electromechanical systems due to concerns about wear and controlability. Here, we demonstrate that complex…
Tensegrity structures are lightweight, can undergo large deformations, and have outstanding robustness capabilities. These unique properties inspired roboticists to investigate their use. However, the morphological design, control,…