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Soft robots, compared to rigid robots, possess inherent advantages, including higher degrees of freedom, compliance, and enhanced safety, which have contributed to their increasing application across various fields. Among these benefits,…
This paper explores the design strategies for hybrid pole- or trunk-climbing robots, focusing on methods to inform design decisions and assess metrics such as adaptability and performance. A wheeled-grasping hybrid robot with modular,…
Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…
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…
Most engineered pilings require substantially more force to be driven into the ground than they can resist during extraction. This requires relatively heavy equipment for insertion, which is problematic for anchoring in hard-to-access…
Pneumatic soft everting robotic structures have the potential to facilitate human transfer tasks due to their ability to grow underneath humans without sliding friction and their utility as a flexible sling when deflated. Tubular structures…
To adapt to constantly changing environments and be safe for human interaction, robots should have compliant and soft characteristics as well as the ability to sense the world around them. Even so, the incorporation of tactile sensing into…
Operating in environments too harsh or inaccessible for humans is one of the critical roles expected of robots. However, such environments often pose risks to electronic components as well. To overcome this, various approaches have been…
Soft growing vine robots show great potential for navigation and decontamination tasks in the nuclear industry. This paper introduces a novel hybrid continuum-eversion robot designed to address certain challenges in relation to navigating…
Climbing Robots are being developed for applications ranging from cleaning to the inspection of difficult to reach constructions. Climbing robots should be capable of carrying a light payload and climbing on vertical surfaces with ability…
This paper explores the concept of external magnetic control for vine robots to enable their high curvature steering and navigation for use in endoluminal applications. Vine robots, inspired by natural growth and locomotion strategies,…
Soft robots offer adaptability and safe interaction with complex environments. Rapid prototyping kits that allow soft robots to be assembled easily will allow different geometries to be explored quickly to suit different environments or to…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
Endowing robots with tactile capabilities opens up new possibilities for their interaction with the environment, including the ability to handle fragile and/or soft objects. In this work, we equip the robot gripper with low-cost…
Soft robot serial chain manipulators with the capability for growth, stiffness control, and discrete joints have the potential to approach the dexterity of traditional robot arms, while improving safety, lowering cost, and providing an…
Soft, growing inflated beam robots, also known as everting vine robots, have previously been shown to navigate confined spaces with ease. Less is known about their ability to navigate three-dimensional open spaces where they have the…
We present a user-friendly interface to teleoperate a soft robot manipulator in a complex environment. Key components of the system include a manipulator with a grasping end-effector that grows via tip eversion, gesture-based control, and…
Continuum and soft robots can leverage complex actuator shapes to take on useful shapes while actuating only a few of their many degrees of freedom. Continuum robots that also grow increase the range of potential shapes that can be actuated…
Movement disorders impact muscle strength and mobility, and despite therapeutic efforts, many people with movement disorders have challenges functioning independently. Soft wearable robots, or exosuits, offer a promising solution for…
Fully autonomous mobile robots have a multitude of potential applications, but guaranteeing robust navigation performance remains an open research problem. For many tasks such as repeated infrastructure inspection, item delivery, or…