Related papers: Development of a Tendon Driven Variable Stiffness …
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…
Soft robotics is attractive for wearable applications that require conformal interactions with the human body. Soft wearable robotic garments hold promise for supplying dynamic compression or massage therapies, such as are applied for…
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…
Assistive robotic arms enable users with physical disabilities to perform everyday tasks without relying on a caregiver. Unfortunately, the very dexterity that makes these arms useful also makes them challenging to teleoperate: the robot…
Motivated by a high demand for automated inspection of civil infrastructure, this work presents a new design and development of a tank-like robot for structural health monitoring. Unlike most existing magnetic wheeled mobile robot designs,…
Able to grasp objects of any shape and size, universal grippers using variable stiffness phenomenon such as granular jamming have been developed for disaster robotics application. However, as their contact interface is mainly composed of…
The Finite Element Method (FEM) is a powerful modeling tool for predicting soft robots' behavior, but its computation time can limit practical applications. In this paper, a learning-based approach based on condensation of the FEM model is…
Soft robots enable safe, adaptive interaction with complex environments but remain difficult to sense and control due to their highly deformable structures. Architected soft materials such as helicoid lattices offer tunable stiffness and…
Frictional contact has been extensively studied as the core underlying behavior of legged locomotion and manipulation, and its nearly-discontinuous nature makes planning and control difficult even when an accurate model of the robot is…
In this study, we present the Differential Spiral Joint (DSJ) mechanism for variable stiffness actuation in tendon-driven robots. The DSJ mechanism semi-decouples the modulation of position and mechanical stiffness, allowing independent…
This paper introduces a chain-driven, sandwich-legged mid-size quadruped robot designed as an accessible research platform. The design prioritizes enhanced locomotion, improved actuation reliability and safety, and simplified,…
Soft robots achieve functionality through tight coupling among geometry, material composition, and actuation. As a result, effective design optimization requires these three aspects to be considered jointly rather than in isolation. This…
Dynamic locomotion in legged robots is close to industrial collaboration, but a lack of standardized testing obstructs commercialization. The issues are not merely political, theoretical, or algorithmic but also physical, indicating limited…
Whole-arm tactile sensing enables a robot to sense contact and infer contact properties across its entire arm. Within this paper, we demonstrate that using data-driven methods, a humanoid robot can infer mechanical properties of objects…
Human fingers achieve exceptional dexterity and adaptability by combining structures with varying stiffness levels, from soft tissues (low) to tendons and cartilage (medium) to bones (high). This paper explores developing a robotic finger…
Soft composite solids are made of inclusions dispersed within soft matrices. They are ubiquitous in nature and form the basis of many biological tissues. In the field of materials science, synthetic soft composites are promising candidates…
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.…
One of the most important features of tendon-driven robots is the ease of wire arrangement and the degree of freedom it affords, enabling the construction of a body that satisfies the desired characteristics by modifying the wire…
Soft grippers have excellent adaptability for a variety of objects and tasks. Jamming-based variable stiffness materials can further increase soft grippers' gripping force and capacity. Previous universal grippers enabled by granular…
This paper presents the application of a learning control approach for the realization of a fast and reliable pick-and-place application with a spherical soft robotic arm. The arm is characterized by a lightweight design and exhibits…